


Fresh Start

by Tenukii



Category: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Le Ballon Rouge | The Red Balloon (1956), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 1960s, Amusement Parks, Breaking Up & Making Up, Christmas, Coming Out, Crossdressing, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Facial Shaving, Folk Music, Internalized Homophobia, Llewyn and Al are Bizarro World Poe and Kylo, M/M, Marriage, Missing Scene, Musicians, New Year's Eve, Period-Typical Homophobia, Shaving, Valentine's Day, Wakes & Funerals, now with Llewyn-verse Hux and Phasma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-03-24 23:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 84,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13821819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenukii/pseuds/Tenukii
Summary: Llewyn goes to Al Cody for help when he has no one else to turn to.  Then, somehow, the grumpy New York songbird and the easygoing cowboy from Jersey end up falling in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peppypear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppypear/gifts).



**February, 1961**

_You queer?_

Llewyn leaned his head on his hand and looked out the window and let the question rattle around between his ears.

_You queer?_

_I. . . it’s not my cat._

A satisfactory answer, that.  Because, while Llewyn wasn’t queer—one time, while drunk no less, didn’t make a man queer—it wouldn’t make any difference if he _was_.  Llewyn decided it wouldn’t bother him if he was, not like it had bothered Mike.

( _And it wasn’t my fault that it bothered him,_ Llewyn told himself for the nth time.)

But the point was moot anyhow, because Llewyn wasn’t queer.  There were women who could attest to that fact.  In Akron, Ohio, there was a child who could attest to it, too.

_You queer?_

_. . it’s not my cat. I just didn’t know what to do with it._

_Really?  So did you bring your dick along too?_

Shouldn’t have.  It wasn’t going to get any use on _this_ trip.

He wondered if Al Cody was queer.  Johnny Five—and “Llewyn” was a “stupid fucking name,” really?—Johnny Five might know.  With his head still propped on his hand, Llewyn turned and looked at Johnny’s profile, the cigarette held at an upward angle between his lips.

“You a friend of Al’s?” Llewyn asked.

Johnny didn’t answer immediately.  He waited a beat.  Then he said, “Yeah.”  Smugly.  What the hell did he have to be smug about?  Wasn’t like being friends with Al Cody was such a coup.

Llewyn turned back to the window and stared out at the countryside.  Mostly flat, mostly grey now but probably mostly green in the spring.  He wondered how Al and Johnny had gotten to be friends—Al was so _nice_.  So big and dumb and nice.  Llewyn could imagine the smugness with which Johnny would answer _Al’s_ questions, and the scorn Roland Turner would heap upon him.

 _What the fuck is going on here?_ Llewyn asked himself.  _How does Al know this shithead?  How does Jim know Al?_   He imagined a constellation of human beings bound together by chains of improbable connections, like pearls on a string: Mike Timlin to Llewyn Davis to Jim Berkey to Al Cody (Arthur Milgrum, except he was going to get it changed eventually) to Johnny Five to Roland Turner.

 _But they’re not all pearls_ , thought Llewyn.  _Turner’s not a pearl, he’s a lump of chalk pretending to be better than the pearls, even.  A lump of chalk, or a piece of shit, maybe._   He thought about Johnny Five and the look on his face when he said he was Al’s friend, and decided Johnny was shit too.

Pearls were few and far between, really.  Mike had been a pearl.  Jim, for all the things about him that bugged Llewyn, was one too.  So was Al, probably.

Llewyn didn’t count himself among the pearls, but he wasn’t pretending to be one, either.

\--

Later, he played his guitar, and they ignored him.  Some of it was proving he was a musician, after all, but a lot of it was just to break the silence, to keep Llewyn’s thoughts from rattling so loudly.  He regaled them with sarcastic singing, but Turner was barely conscious and Johnny. . . who could tell what was going on behind those blue eyes and smug cigarette and half-assed beard?

Llewyn sang at him aggressively, “Tell me who you love, tell me who you love.”  Johnny didn’t seem to hear.

Later, Johnny started mumbling seemingly random words.  It reminded Llewyn of Al, how he’d sing sporadic syllables in his deep voice, not caring that he sounded half insane.  Sometimes the words coalesced into sentences, but whenever Llewyn tried to turn it into a conversation, Johnny clammed up again.  Llewyn gave up and let him babble his shitty poetry.  Better that than Turner’s rumbling, because the rumbling could hurt, like gravel grinding into an open sore that had almost scabbed over.  Turner ripped the scabs right off again, and the ridiculous part of it all was that he wasn’t even trying to be especially cruel.  He was just wired to be loathsome.

 _And Jean thinks **I’m** an asshole,_ Llewyn mused.

\--

They stopped to eat, and Johnny wrote down the shitty poetry he’d been babbling for the last hundred miles or so.  He read it back aloud, and Turner didn’t listen to it, mouth hanging open.  Or perhaps he _was_ listening, because while he found Llewyn to insufferable, he tolerated Johnny with nary a complaint or snidely aggressive remark.  Maybe because Johnny was the one who hauled him around.  Or maybe because Turner recognized a kindred piece of shit in Johnny Five.

“Oh, the bed that takéd the weight of the world,” Johnny read.  “All the lost dreams laid on you.”

Llewyn wondered whose bed he was talking about, or if he meant beds in the abstract, or if the bed was just a clumsy allegory for sex.

“Oh, bed that grows no hair,” read Johnny.

Maybe he was just nuts.

“That cannot be fucked,” Johnny read, then raised his eyebrows and mused, “or _can_ be fucked.”

Maybe he was just a pretentious piece of shit.

Turner got up and went to the restroom, and Llewyn went too after he paid for his meal.  On the wall of the stall, by the toilet paper holder, someone had scrawled in pen, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

_You queer?  Did you bring your dick along too?_

\--

Llewyn didn’t know if Turner was going to pull through or not after he OD’d, but he figured the old man probably would.  Bastards, real dyed-in-the-wool bastards, were hard to kill.

As Johnny Five drove them on in the dark, Llewyn drifted, head tilted back and eyes three-fourths of the way closed.  Johnny remained unconcerned that Turner was anything but all right.  He began muttering again.

“Can be fucked,” he said.  “Fucked.”

Llewyn turned his head slowly to the left to glare at Johnny for keeping him awake.  Not that Johnny had paid attention to Llewyn’s glares before.  He was aware of them, though, Llewyn knew, because now Johnny cut his eyes over.

“Fucked,” he said.  “You ever fuck him?”

“What?”  Llewyn’s eyelids had drooped more, but he hauled them open.  “Fuck who?”  He thought maybe he’d dozed off after all.  Johnny’s question had all the vague illogic of a dream.

“Al,” said Johnny.

“What?” Llewyn asked again.  He wondered if this was just another iteration of “You queer?”  Then he said, “No.  No!  What—he has a girlfriend,” although he wasn’t convinced of that, that the girlfriend really existed.

“I fucked him,” said Johnny.  Llewyn glanced back at Turner, but he was still unconscious.  Still breathing, probably, but unconscious.  And anyway, he wouldn’t ask Johnny Five if he was queer, even if he heard Johnny say he’d fucked another man.

“That’s. . . .”  Llewyn closed his eyes.  “Okay.”  Maybe the girlfriend really was a lie, an excuse to get rid of him.  Maybe Al wasn’t as dumb as he seemed.  He’d gotten rid of Llewyn and Johnny too, all at the same time.  Llewyn thought about Johnny fucking Al, and his drowsiness gave the image a lucid dream’s clarity: Al on his hands and knees with his improbably long legs splayed, Johnny behind him.  Probably smoking at the same time.  Smoking smugly.  Fucking smugly.  Llewyn imagined a groan sounded in Al’s deep voice.

He hauled his eyes open again and focused them on the red embers of the taillights on the car in front of them.

“You really fucked him,” Llewyn said.

“Yeah,” said Johnny.  The corner of his mouth, the side Llewyn could see, twitched in a smirk above the half-assed beard.  “Didn’t let me come in him, and he didn’t get off either time, but I did fuck him.”

“Oh,” said Llewyn, then, “What?  Either time?  You fucked him twice?”

“Yeah,” said Johnny.  He glanced at Llewyn then back at the road.  “First time he was drunk, second time he let me do it sober.  He still didn’t get off though.”  He looked at Llewyn again, and flicked his eyes, colorless in the poor light, over Llewyn’s body.  “Dunno what would get him going, but I guess you ain’t it, if you were staying with him and he didn’t let you hit it.”

“I don’t fuck guys,” said Llewyn.  _Mike didn’t count,_ he imagined explaining to Johnny.  _We were both drunk, and maybe he was queer, but even if he was, I’m not.  So it doesn’t count._

It felt like thinking suicide didn’t count if you jumped off the George Washington Bridge instead of the Brooklyn Bridge.

He tried to think about something else and started wondering what it took to get Al Cody off.  Maybe not that much; Llewyn doubted Johnny Five was a considerate enough lover to try very hard.  Llewyn watched the red taillights on the road ahead and imagined long legs wrapped around his waist, long arms around his neck.  Full lips and dark eyes.

The taillights blurred and went out.

\--

As Llewyn walked away from Al Cody’s mother’s car an hour later, he thought about the string of pearls again.  Two lumps of chalk—or shit—gone _,_ strings hanging loose now between Llewyn Davis and where Johnny Five and Roland Turner had been.  Loose string on the other side where Mike Timlin had been.

 _Al too,_ Llewyn thought.  _I’ll probably never see him again._   Likely a good thing, because of the car.  Llewyn did feel bad about the car, but he felt worse about the cat.

_It’s not my cat.  I just didn’t know what to do with it._

Llewyn felt responsible for the cat, nevertheless.  He didn’t feel responsible for the car, yet Al would end up blaming him for it, somehow, and not Johnny.  Everything was always Llewyn’s fault, always.  The cat, the car, Mike.  Whatever the hell became of Roland Turner.  Whatever became of Johnny Five.  Al wanting to get rid of Llewyn.

“Everything’s always my fault,” said Llewyn, his breath freezing in the air just past his cold lips.  In the face of that, Turner’s question ceased to bother him much at all.

_You queer?_

Yeah.  Sure.  Why not.

That was the least of Llewyn’s troubles.

\--

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

**February, 1961**

Llewyn went to Al’s because Al was the only person nearby who knew him and didn’t hate him, not yet anyway.  He might even get to stay on the couch, if Al’s girlfriend had left—assuming Al’s girlfriend even really existed and hadn’t been invented as a way to get rid of him.  Either way, Al _had_ wanted to get rid of Llewyn, but he didn’t _hate_ him, so Llewyn hobbled there once he was able to walk.

The girlfriend wasn’t there, but Al was.  Llewyn hadn’t even considered Al might not be home, but he was, and he buzzed Llewyn in, and when Al opened the door to see Llewyn hunched over with an arm clutching his stomach, his other hand gripping the handle of his guitar case, and one eye rapidly swelling shut, Al let him come in.

“What happened to you?”  Al looked him up and down.

“Fight,” said Llewyn.

“Didn’t you fight back?  Go sit down.”  Al turned away from him and opened the freezer.  Llewyn trudged over to the couch, dropped the guitar case, then sank down into the creaking springs and flattened cushions.  He didn’t say that he didn’t fight back, but Al continued muttering in his startlingly deep voice, “I knew that’s the type of guy you are.  All talk and no action.  Starting shit you can’t finish.”

“Look, if this is a bad time—” Llewyn began, but Al waved him silent with one large, pale hand, bony wrist protruding from the sleeve of his faded bathrobe.  He looked ridiculous, gangling and awkward.

After Llewyn had kept silent a moment, he tried again.  “You got any cigarettes?”

“I quit smoking.”  Al shuffled over to the couch, carrying something wrapped in a thin, ragged dishtowel.  He was so tall, he had to crouch down in front of Llewyn to mash the bundle against Llewyn’s face, over his blackened eye.

“Ow, shit,” Llewyn hissed.  He winced and tried to draw back, but Al cuffed his left hand around the back of the smaller man’s head and made him stay still.  The cold of the block of ice, or whatever it was wrapped in the cloth, burned.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Llewyn asked after a minute, when his face was growing numb and Al still didn’t let up.  Al’s eyes, so dark brown they were nearly black, flicked from the ice pack to Llewyn’s single visible eye.

“Why?  You need a place to crash again?”

“No, no, I just wondered.”  Llewyn tried to sound like the idea of sleep hadn’t occurred to him, not at all. 

“Here.  Hold this.  Five more minutes.”  Al let go of the back of Llewyn’s head, grasped his hand, and brought it up to the ice pack.  When Llewyn gripped the pack, Al stood up and went back to the kitchenette, flexing the hand that had held the ice.

“It would just be for a couple nights,” Llewyn said.  “I’m shipping out after that.”

Al wasn’t doing anything in particular in the kitchen, just leaning over the counter braced on his long arms, facing the cabinets on the wall.  He looked back at Llewyn over his shoulder.

“Shipping out?”

“Merchant Marines.  Gotta get my papers tomorrow—made enough tonight to cover it—then I’m gone.”  Al was still looking at him, and Llewyn turned his eye to gaze at his guitar case instead.

“Fresh start,” he muttered.

Al sighed, and when Llewyn glanced at him again, he was resting the top of his head against the cabinet door, pale face turned down toward the countertop.

“Fine,” Al muttered.  “Take the couch.  But do something about your records before you leave—you left ‘em here when you went to Chicago.”

\--

Llewyn stayed out of Al’s way the next day, but by nightfall, he’d gotten the rest of his stuff from Jean and Jim’s and had to go back.  He dropped his bags by his guitar case and sat on the couch.

“You haven’t done anything with those records,” said Al from the kitchenette.  He was leaning on the counter, on his ass this time and facing outward as he drank a glass of water.

“Throw them out,” Llewyn told him.  “Fresh start.”  As Al stared at him, Llewyn thought of the box of albums already under the table, Al with his guitar case on the covers.  Then Al shrugged and turned to the sink to refill his glass.

“Uh. . . can I leave my guitar here, though?” Llewyn asked after a moment.

“Your guitar.”  Al set down the glass.

“Yeah, I. . . can’t really take it with me.”

“Sell it,” said Al, “if you’re making a fresh start.”  If Llewyn hadn’t needed Al’s help, he would have mentioned the girlfriend again, or pointed out that “Arthur” was a much nicer-sounding name than “Al.”

Instead, Llewyn added, “Please.”  He tried for the pleading look that sometimes worked on his friends, especially women—at least the friends who hadn’t started hating him yet.  The look was usually made more effective by his naturally half-drooping eyelids, but the black eye probably diminished it, and anyway, he didn’t think it would work on Al.  But the look and Al were all he had left.

“I’m not going to live here forever,” Al told him.  “I’ll probably be gone the next time you’re back in town.”

_Royalties,_ Llewyn thought.  Al may have believed he was bullshitting Llewyn, but he wasn’t.

“Write me,” Llewyn suggested, “when you move.  Send me your new address.  I’ll come back for it, I promise.”

“That’s the problem.  You’ll come back,” said Al.  He picked up the glass and drained it then set it down again with a hard clank.  “Go take a shower.  You smell like shit.  Are any of your clothes clean?”

Llewyn shrugged.

“Throw those—”  Al gestured at what Llewyn was wearing.  “—out in the hall before you get in.  I’ve got to do a load tonight, so I’ll put your shit in too.”

“Thanks.”  Llewyn hid his surprise and got up from the couch, already stepping out of his shoes.

When he was out of the shower—a small shower in a small bathroom, and Llewyn wondered how Al fit all of his limbs in there at once—he wiped the mirror off and looked himself over.  The worst bruising was on his face, but the purple splotches on his torso didn’t help anything.  Neither did the flabbiness that had crept in there, despite how irregularly he ate.  But that would go away once he shipped out and started doing physical labor again, and the bruises would fade.  And really, it didn’t matter what he looked like, not anymore.

Llewyn emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, glad at first for the coldness of the apartment in winter after the suffocating shower steam in the little bathroom.  Al wasn’t around, probably still in the basement with the laundry, and Llewyn poked through the apartment while he waited.  There was no indication of a girlfriend, even a long-distance once, and there wasn’t much food either.  Llewyn made toast and ate it dry when he couldn’t find anything to put on it.  He washed it down with water from the glass Al had used.  Then he sat down on the couch, wearing the towel, and played his guitar until Al came back.

Llewyn kept playing so he wouldn’t have to thank Al a second time, and the other man dropped the laundry basket on the floor, crouched beside it, and sorted Llewyn’s stuff from his.  When Llewyn’s t-shirt landed on the couch atop the rest of his clothes, Llewyn put down the guitar and pulled on the shirt.  Al threw a ball of shorts over next, and Llewyn stood and let the towel drop as he reached for them.

“Jesus Christ, Llew,” muttered Al, “cover that shit up.”  He stood, averting his eyes, and scooped up the basket of his own clothes.  As he stalked back to his bedroom with the basket, Llewyn growled after him.

“Thanks for letting me use the shower, _Arthur_.”

Llewyn stepped into the shorts and packed up the rest of his clothes.  By the time he finished, Al was coming back into the kitchenette for more water.  He’d undressed into his bathrobe.

“You must piss, like, all the time,” Llewyn said.  He looked at his guitar for a moment before putting it away in its case.

“Water’s healthy,” said Al.  He was leaning on his ass against the counter again.  The bathrobe was short on him and barely reached his knees; beneath its hem, his calves were white, well-defined, and only sparsely covered with hair.  He saw Llewyn studying him, looked the smaller man over, then added, “You should shave.  This look doesn’t work for you.”

Llewyn sat down on the couch again, leaned back against the cushion, and told Al, “And you should lose the cowboy hat and use your real name.  The country-western shit _really_ doesn’t work for you.”

“Fuck you, Llew.”  Al looked down at the glass in his hand then reached back to set it in the sink.

“It’s Llewyn,” said Llewyn.  “I don’t like ‘Llew.’”

“I don’t care,” said Al.  “It’s easier to say.”

They glared at one another, and Llewyn said, “You don’t really have a girlfriend, do you?”  The hurt look that crossed Al’s face then made Llewyn feel unexpectedly bad.  _Oh, so you feel bad about **that** , _he imagined Jean saying.  _Asshole._

“It’s okay,” Llewyn added.  “I get it, you lied so I wouldn’t hang around.  But you don’t have to lie.  I’m leaving tomorrow.  Tomorrow morning.”

Al pushed himself off of the counter with his hands and went down the hall toward the bathroom, muttering, “You’re right.  I don’t really have a girlfriend,” as he went.  Llewyn heard the door shut, but it wasn’t enough to muffle the sound of Al pissing a minute later.

_I was right,_ Llewyn thought. _He does piss a lot._

He thought Al wasn’t coming back.  The toilet flushed and the bathroom door opened, and Al didn’t reappear.  Llewyn lay down on the couch then sat up again, tossed the cushions around, leaned forward with his forearms folded across his knees.  He wanted a cigarette, but Al didn’t have any.  He was hungry, and Al didn’t have any food either, besides the end of the loaf of bread.  He was bored, but if he took out his guitar again, Al would think he was being a pretentious shit.

_Fuck Al,_ Llewyn thought.  _Nothing wrong with being a pretentious shit._

Al did have a record player on a rickety stand.  Llewyn looked at it, and then he looked at his own albums still sitting in front of the cloth-draped end table by the window, and then he pulled out the box of Al’s records hidden behind the table cloth.

After he put _Five & Twenty Questions _on, Llewyn sat down again and looked at the cover.  Al looked surreally tall and thin, and his hair was too short, especially with ears as big as his.  As ridiculous as Llewyn found Al’s cowboy hat, he looked better with it on, to cover those ears.  But even without the hat, the album’s cover had an affected Western feel to it, and Llewyn decided Al Cody was more of a pretentious shit than he, Llewyn, could ever be.

Then Llewyn flipped the album over and stared at the back of the sleeve.  It didn’t have a picture of Al.  The typography was nice.  The track titles were mediocre.  Llewyn let his eyes glaze over as, instead of looking, he listened.  Al’s lyrics were mediocre too, but his voice was incredible.  It wasn’t the voice of a lead, and Llewyn understood why Al would be getting royalties on a single Jim wrote while he had a box full of unsold solo albums under his end table; but his voice was incredible all the same.

_So deep,_ thought Llewyn.  _His voice is so deep._

When the needle had crept past the A side of the album and was scratching on the label, Llewyn set the sleeve on the table and got up to flip the record.  Al was leaning in the open doorway that led into the hall, watching him.

“What are you doing?” he asked Llewyn.

“I wanted to hear what you sound like by yourself,” Llewyn said.  He flipped the record, pulled the arm back out to the edge, and dropped the needle into the groove.  “You have a good voice.”

“Thanks,” said Al.  He went to the couch and sat down on the left side.  When he put his arms up across the back, they stretched almost the entire width of the couch.  Llewyn looked down at the record spinning around the player and listened to Al’s deep voice singing a traditional ballad:

_I can’t get down, and I won’t get down, and stay all night with thee,  
For the girl I have in that merry green land, I love far better than thee._

Llewyn sat back down on the couch, and as they listened to the album, he thought about the man at his side.  He wondered if Al knew what had happened to the car and Mr. Turner and Johnny Five, the man who had claimed to be Al’s friend.

_I can’t fly down, and I won’t fly down, and light on your right knee,  
For a girl who’d murder her own true love would kill a little bird like me._

Al’s deep voice wasn’t very well suited to the words of a little bird, but then, he’d sung the girl’s parts too, and that was worse.  Llewyn wondered if Al’s whole life was built on lies, friends who weren’t his friends, a girlfriend who didn’t exist, a name that wasn’t even really his name.

_Who is he, really?_ Llewyn wondered.  When he glanced up at Al, Al was looking back at him.  His eyes looked as deep and dark as his voice, but when they met Llewyn’s, they darted away and Al licked his lips, like he was embarrassed.

_If you had your bended bow, your arrow, and your string,  
I’d fly away to the merry green land, and tell what I have seen._

_Nothing to tell,_ thought Llewyn.  _I don’t know any more about him than I did that day in the studio.  Maybe I know even less._

Al had written the rest of the songs on the album himself, and they weren’t very good, apart from the beauty of his voice.

“I don’t see much money here,” Llewyn said when the needle again scratched the label and stayed there, thumping with every revolution of the record.  “But I guess you don’t either.”

“No,” agreed Al.  “But I’m not giving up.”  He shifted behind Llewyn, his long arm curling slightly around the smaller man’s shoulders.  Llewyn hadn’t realized he was cold until he felt the warmth of Al’s arm on his thin t-shirt and bare skin.  Al went on, “Every time you have to make a decision, you get a choice.  If I keep choosing long enough, eventually I’ll make the right one.”

“I won’t,” said Llewyn.  He sighed and turned his head away to look at the dark window.  “Maybe in another life, you were an asshole and I was a nice guy.  But not anymore.”

Al sighed too, heavily, and tilted his head so it rested on the back of the couch.  He groaned, “Fuck me.  I knew this would happen if I let you stay long enough.”

“You knew I would fuck you if you let me stay long enough?”  The quip came out before Llewyn really thought about it.  He faced forward again and tilted his head back too.  Instead of the couch, it rested on Al’s upper arm, which felt surprisingly firm and muscular.  A flicker moved through Al’s muscles, and Llewyn felt something flicker too, deep inside him.

“It was an epithet,” mumbled Al.  “I didn’t mean you, specifically, fucking me.”  He gave no more reaction than that.

“Oh.  Well, at least you wouldn’t get pregnant if the condom broke,” said Llewyn.

“I meant,” Al persisted, “that I’m an idiot because I knew that if I spent enough time around you, I would find something to like about you.  And I let you stay anyway.”  Llewyn didn’t say anything, and Al sighed again.  “And I don’t even have any condoms.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Llewyn.  “Neither do I.  I don’t care.”

\--

Al was the second guy Llewyn had fucked, but the first he’d fucked sober.  They did it missionary, with Al on his back and Llewyn on top of him, Al’s long legs up on his shoulders.  It was good, better than Llewyn had expected.  When Al came, he groaned, “Oh God, Llew, _Llew_ ,” and gripped Llewyn’s ass and pulled the smaller man hard against him.  Llewyn came too, inside him, with a wordless growl through his clenched teeth. 

After he pulled out, he lay on Al’s chest, propped up on his elbows, and looked down into the other man’s long, pale face.  Al’s eyes were closed, but when he opened them, they fixed on Llewyn’s.

“Arthur,” said Llewyn.  “You really shouldn’t get your name changed.”

“Because the cowboy shit doesn’t work for me?”

“Because I like ‘Arthur’ better than ‘Al,’” said Llewyn.  “I can’t yell ‘Al!’ when I fuck you.  I’d sound stupid.”

“And I’d sound stupid if I yelled ‘Llewyn,’” Al told him.  “Who said I was going to let you fuck me again, anyway?”

“Yeah, you _let_ me.  Like you did me some huge favor.  I don’t even fuck guys.”

“Neither do I,” said Al.

“Could’ve fooled me.  I wasn’t your first.”  Al glared up at him, and Llewyn studied the angry, sullen, hurt expression his face held.  Then he said, “You don’t have to lie.  You weren’t mine, either.  Just my first sober.”

“Third.  Second sober,” muttered Al.  He closed his eyes again and drew his full, almost feminine lower lip between his teeth.  “First to make me come.  The other times, I had to jerk off after.”  He lay there frowning.

“You came a lot,” Llewyn observed.

“It’s been a while.  And I told you, drinking water is healthy.  Doesn’t just make you piss all the time.”

“What do you like about me?” asked Llewyn.  Al opened one dark eye, and his brow furrowed.  Llewyn elaborated, “You said you knew you’d find something to like about me.  What is it?”

“Hell if I know.”  Al closed his eye again.  “You made me come.”

“You said it before we fucked, so it was something else.”

“I don’t _know_.  You’re beautiful.  And there’s something in you.”  Al hauled his eyes open once more and looked up as he lifted a hand and hovered it near the side of Llewyn’s head.  His deep voice dropped to a whisper when he went on, “Jim said you don’t care about anybody anymore except yourself, but he was wrong.  You don’t even care about yourself.”

Al’s hand fell against Llewyn’s hair, and his long fingers dug in and raked through the black curls, back along the curve of Llewyn’s skull.  Al’s hand felt good.  He murmured, “But maybe you _were_ a nice guy in another life, because there’s something of that still in you.”

“And you’re still a little bit of an asshole,” said Llewyn.  He dropped his mouth down onto Al’s and ignored the muffled, startled exclamation that vibrated against his lips.  Then Al opened his mouth and sucked Llewyn’s tongue in and kissed him hard, holding Llewyn’s head down.  He was the first man Llewyn had ever kissed, and it was good, better than Llewyn had expected.

“Oh fuck, Llew,” Al breathed when he let his hand drop from Llewyn’s hair, and the smaller man lifted his head, breathing hard.  Llewyn wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and rolled off of Al.  The bed was a single, and Llewyn had to sleep crushed against Al’s side, but it was better than the creaking couch.  During the night, Al turned in his sleep to curl around Llewyn’s smaller body, chest to Llewyn’s back and arm draped over Llewyn’s abdomen.  Llewyn half woke to press back into the warmth of Al’s body.

He fucked Al again in the morning then went back to sleep while Al was in the shower.  When he woke up, Llewyn showered again too and gathered up his stuff, except for his guitar and the records.

“Do you want to go get breakfast?” Al asked in a mutter, his back to Llewyn as he washed the few dishes sitting in the sink.  “I’ll buy.”

“No, I need to get going,” said Llewyn.  He set his bags by the door and waited until Al drained the sink and dried his bony hands and turned to face him.

“Yeah,” Al said.

“Thank you,” Llewyn told him, “for letting me stay.  And for doing my laundry.”

“Yeah,” Al said.  He walked past Llewyn and held the door open for him while Llewyn picked up his bags again and went out into the narrow hall.

“Don’t forget to write me and tell me where you are,” Llewyn said.  He stood in the hall and Al stood in the doorway, door propped open behind him.  Llewyn looked up at the other man’s pale, impassive face and added, “So I can come see you and get my guitar.  It’ll be something to look forward to.”

“Getting your guitar back,” said Al.  His face stayed impassive except for a flicker through his eyes.  The flicker looked hurt, and as before, it made Llewyn feel bad.

_Every time you have to make a decision, you get a choice,_ Al had said.  _If I keep choosing long enough, eventually I’ll make the right one._ Llewyn considered that, considered how every time he thought he _was_ making the right choice, he just fucked things up worse.

So then he decided what the right choice would be, and he did the opposite.

“No, seeing you again,” said Llewyn.  Al gave him the incredulous look that cycled over his face from time to time.

“You don’t have to lie,” he said.

“I’m not lying,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”

When Al reached for him with one hand, Llewyn put down his bags a second time.  Al’s hand cupped Llewyn’s jaw, then his other hand went to Llewyn’s hair, then he drew the smaller man closer and bent down and kissed him.  By the time Al let him go, Llewyn’s hands were in Al’s hair, too, and his lips were rubbed raw.

“Fuck, Llew,” Al said, like before; then he added, “You really should lose the beard.  It’s scratchy.”

“I’ll lose the beard when you lose the cowboy hat,” Llewyn told him, “Arthur.”

As he jogged down the spiraling stairs of the apartment building, Llewyn thought about Al and how things might be when he got back.  He didn’t hope for much.  He believed he’d get his guitar back, because Al was a nice guy.  As to anything more than that, he tried to pretend that the Llewyn Davis of some other world might hold some sway in this one.  If he, the Llewyn of this lifetime, had such shitty luck, certainly the other had been richly blessed.  Successful.  Fortunate.  Beloved.  Probably clean-shaven.

When he came back, Llewyn pretended, Al’s name change would have gone through.  He’d still be getting royalties, and he’d be living somewhere better, somewhere nicer.  Llewyn wouldn’t need to crash on Al’s new couch though, or even in Al’s new (larger) bed because he’d have money too and get his own place.  When they slept together, they’d do it in Llewyn’s very own bed.

Fresh start notwithstanding, Llewyn might perform with Al sometimes.  Al wouldn’t give him that hurt look anymore.  He would get rid of the cowboy hat, and Llewyn would get rid of the beard.

_And maybe,_ Llewyn thought as he pushed through the building’s outer door, out into the winter morning and his fresh start, _I’ll get a cat._

\--

It didn’t happen that way, of course.

Al got his royalties, but by the time Llewyn saw him again, Al had sold out for a house in the suburbs and gotten a job in an office and started going by Arthur again.  In the process of selling out, he’d also sold his own guitar, though he kept Llewyn’s for him as promised and gave it back when Llewyn tracked down the address Arthur had sent him.

Llewyn performed alone and didn’t get much of anywhere with it.

Arthur kept his cowboy hat, and Llewyn kept his beard.

Llewyn didn’t get a cat.

He didn’t get a cat because Arthur was allergic, and anyway, Arthur didn’t like the idea of cat hair strewn all over the house.  He didn’t like the idea of Llewyn’s clothes strewn all over the house either, but he got used to it.  In turn, Llewyn got used to Arthur calling him “Llew,” and he switched to calling Arthur “Al” instead of the other way around when they argued.

Arthur did the laundry.  Llewyn cooked.

Arthur was still a nice guy, mostly, and Llewyn was still an asshole, mostly.  But Arthur’s face didn’t cycle through the hurt look much anymore, and they quit trying to lie to each other.

After Llewyn had been gone for one year and then back for six months, Arthur told him, “I love you.”

Llewyn thought about his decision and made his choice and said, “I love you too.”

For a moment, he and the Llewyn Davis of another life coalesced.

\--

To be continued


	3. Chapter 3

**February 18, 1961**

Al knew who Llewyn Davis was, of course; Jim had talked about him sometimes.  Jean had talked about Llewyn too, but only to bitch about him, and Al didn’t like Jean much anyway.  So when Llewyn showed up to fill in on “Please Mr. Kennedy,” the only thing that really surprised Al was that he had a beard, and that he was shorter than Al had expected.  Other than that, Al wasn’t surprised.

He looked at Llewyn, then away, until Jim said to Llewyn, “Do you know Al Cody?”

“Hey man,” said Llewyn.

“Hi,” said Al.  He grinned and half-rose from his stool to shake Llewyn’s hand.  Llewyn didn’t smile, and he didn’t lean forward as much as Al did, but he sort of nodded and said, “Hey,” again.  The beard made him look scruffy, the beard and his tousled curly hair and his blocky corduroy suit, but he was cute, and his eyes were beautiful.  He looked like he could be a lot of trouble.

Llewyn Davis also thought he was hot shit.  That much was obvious when, asked if he could read a chart, he said, “I, uh, I can stare at a chart and fake it, sir,” then laughed at his own joke.  The skin around his eyes crinkled when he laughed, and Al smiled at that more than at the quip.

But yeah, Llewyn was trouble, because he couldn’t read a chart, and Jim and Al had to teach him the song.  Which really meant Jim teaching him the song while Al sat to the side and tried to help and came off sounding earnest and ridiculous.  Not that Llewyn paid him any attention.  He was too busy singing and smoking at the same time, and passive-aggressively trying to improve on Jim’s song.  When he did look at Al, it was with a look of vague incomprehension, but that was Jim’s fault; he was the one who wrote the song.  Al was just singing it like he was supposed to.  Unlike Llewyn.

“Oka-ay,” muttered Llewyn when he stopped to put out his cigarette.  He leaned in to Jim and murmured, “Hey look, I’m happy for the gig, but who—who _wrote_ this?”  He probably thought Al had.

Jim’s face fell into a look of utter bewilderment.

“I did,” he said.

Llewyn nodded.

After they finished recording, Llewyn sat down to fill out his contract while Jim and Al packed up their equipment.

Llewyn joked over his shoulder, “We’ll be touring, right?”

“Touring Uranus,” Al replied before he thought better of it.  Jim had knelt to pack up his guitar, and he glanced up at Al with a grin.  Al blushed, and Llewyn muttered, “I’ll get my vaccinations.”

After that, Al tried to get away without speaking to Llewyn, but on his way out, Llewyn called after him, “Hey, where do you live, Al?”

Al stopped.  He knew what was coming.  He should lie.

“Uh, Downing Street,” he said.

“Yeah, nice place?” Llewyn asked.

“It’s. . . it’s a dump,” said Al.  He didn’t have to lie about that.

“Unh hunh,” said Llewyn.  “Got a couch?”

Al should lie.  He should say no.  He should say he didn’t have a couch.  He should say he didn’t even have a floor.  It wasn’t that hard to lie to Llewyn, he later discovered, to look right in those big brown eyes with their long lashes and half-lowered lids and _lie_.

But Al was a nice guy, and he said yes.  And when Llewyn asked if he could crash for a couple days, Al said yes to that too.

_I’m going to regret this,_ he thought.  He always seemed to end up regretting it when he tried to be nice.

\--

Later, Al was coming out of his apartment when Llewyn was coming in, carrying a box of something that turned out to be unsold copies of an album of his.

“Oh good,” said Al.  “Uh, here’s the key.”  He dropped it on top of the box.  “I’m just going out to Jersey to pick up my mom’s car.”  Llewyn nodded and smiled a little, and that made Al smile too.  Then they had to get their bodies past each other with the box between them in the narrow hall, and they both laughed.

“Oops, sorry,” Llewyn gasped, sucking in his stomach.  Al pressed his ass flat against the wall and bent his knees and got past Llewyn with a couple awkward little hops, looking down at the top of Llewyn’s head and the dark brown curls of his messy hair.  Al kept watching him a second after, dropping his eyes down Llewyn’s back to where the curve of the top of his ass was just visible through his bulky corduroy jacket.

Llewyn Davis was a mess, and he was exactly what Al didn’t need in his life just then.  In fact, it was good Al had to run home, because going home would keep him from being alone in the apartment with Llewyn.

Al reasoned that if he never admitted, even to himself, that he was attracted to other men, it wasn’t true.  Even if the two times he’d been with a guy had been miles better than his few experiences with women.  Even if the very thought of Llewyn Davis’s ass made him feel crazy as Al turned away and strode down the hall.  Even if Llewyn’s eyes were beautiful and his lips were perfect and his hair would feel like heaven sliding through Al’s fingers.  Even if Llewyn strutted around like a grumpy pigeon and was pretty much an asshole, and that was exactly what turned Al on.

Because Al wasn’t going to admit any of those things, they weren’t true.

Nevertheless, the longer Al was around Llewyn, the greater chance he’d find something to admire, something redeeming in a man who was otherwise a lost cause.  And Al suspected that if he found that thing—even the _smallest_ thing, the slightest bit of goodness—he’d fall in love with Llewyn Davis, and that would be the worst choice Al could possibly make.

“I have to get rid of him,” Al muttered to himself.

\--

When Al got back from New Jersey and was unloading the car, Llewyn came up behind him, seemingly from out of nowhere.

“Hey,” said Al.  Llewyn nodded.  He had a sullen look on his face again, none of the laughter Al had seen in the hallway, and he was walking quickly like he wanted to get inside as soon as possible.  It was cold.

“Uh, can you bring this up for me?” Al asked as Llewyn passed him.  Al lifted a crate of his stuff out of the trunk.  He had been going to carry it up himself then come back down to move the car, but he wanted to talk to Llewyn.  Or anyone, really, who wasn’t his family, wasn’t his mother or father or Dawn—for the love of God, why did _she_ have to be over at the house right when Al showed up?  Al had ended up bringing the rest of his stuff back with him because perfect cousin Dawn had been the last straw for him _,_ and he decided it was time to make some changes and some commitments.

Llewyn stopped and looked at the crate with the same expression of bewilderment he’d given Al in the studio, mouth open and breathing steam into the cold air.  He clearly didn’t want to talk to Al, and for some reason, he was carrying an orange cat.

“This ain’t a spot,” Al added as an excuse.  “I just brought some stuff from home—”

“Uh, yeah.”  Llewyn looked down at his right hand, which clutched his guitar case, then sort of held the case and the cat up.  “Yeah, sure.”

On the drive back to the city, Al had come up with a way to get rid of Llewyn.

“Hey, you don’t need to—”  He got distracted by the cat meowing as he leaned over to tuck the crate under Llewyn’s right arm.  The cat was cute, and Al meowed back at it.

Al tried again.  “You don’t need to crash more than a couple days, do you?”  He said it fast, but he made the mistake of looking into Llewyn’s eyes at the end of it.  Llewyn still looked bewildered but also a little lost, maybe a little hurt.

“Uh—” he began, and Al blurted out the justification he’d invented.

“My girlfriend’s coming down from Boston Tuesday.”  It sounded plausible enough, as long as Llewyn didn’t start wondering how a guy from New Jersey, living in New York, had hooked up with a girl in Boston—and Llewyn, self-centered little asshole that he was, probably _wouldn’t_ start wondering.  Still, Al waited with some apprehension and hoped the lie wasn’t written all over his face.

“Uh. . . .”  But then Llewyn bought it, and he started to nod.  “Yeah, no, that’s. . . yeah, that’s fine, that’s okay.”  Inexplicably, he tacked a “Yeah, thanks” on at the end.

Al had had another idea too, and since the girlfriend thing had gone so much better than expected, he tried that one as well.  The farther he could get Llewyn away from him, the better.

“You don’t wanna go to Chicago, do you?” he asked as cheerfully as he could manage as he shut the trunk.  He smiled, but it faded when Llewyn gave him that uncomprehending look again and turned away.

“Why would I wanna go to Chicago,” Llewyn muttered.

“Yeah.  Ha.”  Al forced a laugh and looked down at his mother’s car.  “This car’s going to Chicago Tuesday.  A friend of mine is taking someone to a gig, and they’re looking for someone to help pay for gas.”  He said it casually, throwing in the word “gig” like baiting a fish hook.  As if he hadn’t thought it all out beforehand.  As if “friend” was the right word to describe Johnny Five.  As if Al weren’t trying to get rid of several problems at once, Llewyn Davis among them, and praying his mother’s car wouldn’t end up as collateral damage.

Llewyn was at the apartment building’s door, his back to it, nodding with a complete lack of interest.

“I prefer New York.”  Then he looked down into Al’s crate and asked, “Who’s ‘Arthur Milgrum’?”  The cat seemed to be looking down into the crate too.  Al had forgotten he’d put his mail on top, and he cursed himself for it.  When Llewyn’s dark eyes lifted to study Al’s face, Al realized he could only lie to Llewyn if he had time to think through the lie first.

“Well, that’s me,” he admitted.  “I’m gonna change it legally.  At some point.”

\--

Al worried about Llewyn over the next couple of days, but Llewyn did leave on Tuesday, and he did go to Chicago.  He never told Al why he changed his mind, and Al didn’t ask.  Asking might have somehow jinxed it and kept Llewyn from going.

Llewyn never explained the cat to Al either, and Al discovered he was allergic to it.  Llewyn was a slob, and he ate most of Al’s food and smoked all his cigarettes, and the cat drank all of Al’s milk and shed everywhere.  And then Llewyn was gone, and so was the cat, and so was Al’s mother’s car.  Al would only ever see one of the three again, and at the time, he thought it would be the car.

As he cleaned up the cat hair left all over his apartment, sneezing the whole time he worked, Al decided it really _was_ time for some changes and some commitments.  He’d quit smoking.  (Not having any cigarettes left, he was already at a good stopping point, and he threw his ashtrays out along with the butts Llewyn had left in them.)  He’d start drinking more water.  (Not having anything else left to drink, apart from booze, he was already at a good starting point.)  Once the car was back and he’d returned it to his mother, he’d quit talking to his family.  Especially Dawn.

_And I won’t let any more men sleep over,_ Al told himself while he picked orange cat hairs off his couch.  There were a few longer, darker, wavy hairs stuck to the cushions as well, where Llewyn’s head had rested.  _On the couch or anywhere else._

\--

To be continued


	4. Chapter 4

**February, 1961**

But then one night a few days later, Al’s intercom buzzed, and when he answered it, he heard Llewyn’s voice.

“Al?  Hey, it’s—it’s Llewyn,” Llewyn said.  “Can I come up?”

Al knew he should say no, but he buzzed Llewyn in.  It took Llewyn a while to get up the stairs, but finally he thumped on the door, and Al opened it.  Llewyn looked like shit.

“What happened to you?” Al asked.

“Fight,” said Llewyn.

“Didn’t you fight back?” Al muttered.  “Go sit down.”  He let Llewyn in and shut the door behind him, then went to his freezer for something to put on Llewyn’s swollen eye.  Al was angry, angry at Llewyn for turning up again, angry at himself for letting Llewyn in, angry at an unknown stranger for hurting Llewyn.  Al wanted to kill the guy, whoever he was, even though Llewyn had probably done something to deserve it.

“I knew that’s the type of guy you are,” Al muttered.  His mother had called him that day too, and Al was tired of trying to be nice.  “All talk and no action.  Starting shit you can’t finish.”

“Look, if this is a bad time—”  Al shut Llewyn up with a wave of his hand, but a minute later, Llewyn asked, “You got any cigarettes?”

“I quit smoking,” Al told Llewyn as he went over and knelt down in front of him.  Al had wrapped a package of frozen peas—bought after Llewyn had left, when Al decided he might as well start eating more vegetables too—in a dishtowel, and he put the pack on Llewyn’s face.

“Ow, shit,” bitched Llewyn.  When he tried to pull away, Al caught the back of his head with his free hand and held Llewyn and the ice together.  Llewyn’s hair did feel good, but kind of greasy, and Al tried not to think about how he was touching Llewyn for the first time.

Llewyn was quiet for all of another minute; then he asked Al, “Where’s your girlfriend?”  Al looked at him, into the one eye he could see, but he couldn’t tell if Llewyn had any malice behind the question.

“Why?” muttered Al.  “You need a place to crash again?”  _This time,_ he swore, _I’ll tell him no.  Soon as I fix him up, he’s gone._

“No, no, I just wondered,” said Llewyn, in a tone that clearly meant _yes_ instead.

_I have to get rid of him,_ Al thought.

“Here.  Hold this.  Five more minutes.”  He took Llewyn’s small hand and pulled it up to hold the dishtowel and the peas.  When he was sure Llewyn wasn’t about to drop them, Al let go and went back to the kitchen to get away from him.  He leaned on the counter and tried to think.

“It would just be for a couple nights,” Llewyn said.  “I’m shipping out after that.”

Al looked at Llewyn over his shoulder and asked, “Shipping out?”  That sounded promising.

“Merchant Marines,” Llewyn explained.  “Gotta get my papers tomorrow—made enough tonight to cover it—then I’m gone.”  Llewyn looked away from Al, still holding the peas over his eye, and muttered, “Fresh start.”

_Just like me,_ Al thought.  He leaned his forehead on the cabinet door and sighed.

“Fine.  Take the couch,” Al said.  “But do something about your records before you leave—you left ‘em here when you went to Chicago.”

_I’m going to regret this,_ he thought.

\--

Al didn’t see much of Llewyn the next day, but Llewyn came back that night with the rest of his stuff, and Al didn’t have anywhere else to be.  He stood in the kitchen drinking his water—he’d kept all his new commitments so far except for the one about not letting men sleep over—while Llewyn sat on the couch.

“You haven’t done anything with those records,” Al told him.

Llewyn said, “Throw them out.  Fresh start.”  That surprised Al, but he shrugged and turned back to the sink.  Maybe Llewyn took the idea of a new life pretty seriously after all.

But then Llewyn asked him, “Uh. . . can I leave my guitar here, though?”

“Your guitar,” Al groaned.  He put his glass down and turned around again to look at Llewyn.  He hoped his face showed the same bewilderment Llewyn’s usually did when Llewyn looked at _him_.

“Yeah,” Llewyn mumbled.  “I. . . can’t really take it with me.”

“Sell it, if you’re making a fresh start,” Al suggested.  For a second, Llewyn glared at him, but then his expression changed and went all wide-eyed and needy.  He even said, “Please.”

_I have to get rid of him,_ Al thought for the thousandth time.  A _few more looks like that, and he could make me do anything he wanted._

“I’m not going to live here forever,” Al said, although he felt like it was a lie.  “I’ll probably be gone the next time you’re back in town.”

Llewyn hesitated, then said, “Write me, when you move.  Send me your new address.  I’ll come back for it, I promise.”

“That’s the problem,” Al muttered.  “You’ll come back.”

_Fuck being nice,_ he thought as he picked up his glass to buy some time.  _Fuck Llewyn Davis._   He drank the rest of his water and set the glass down hard, and Llewyn was still looking at him like that, and Al thought, _Fuck me, he **could** make me do anything he wanted._

“Go take a shower,” he told Llewyn.  “You smell like shit.  Are any of your clothes clean?”  When Llewyn shrugged, Al waved a hand at him and said, “Throw those out in the hall before you get in.  I’ve got to do a load tonight, so I’ll put your shit in too.”

“Thanks,” said Llewyn.  He didn’t even look surprised.  When he got up from the couch, he was already stepping out of his shoes, toes of one foot holding down the heel of the other shoe.

Al got his laundry basket and tossed the clothes Llewyn had dumped from his bags on top.  When the bathroom door opened a crack and Llewyn threw out what he’d been wearing, Al put that in the basket too and went down to the basement before he could think too much about Llewyn naked in his shower.

When Al got back with their clothes, Llewyn was on the couch with a towel around his waist, strumming his guitar.  He was chubbier than Al would have guessed, but not by much.  Al tried not to look at him and sorted their laundry, tossing Llewyn’s stuff up on the couch.  Llewyn stopped playing to put on a t-shirt, which helped, so Al threw some shorts over next.  Llewyn stood up and let his towel fall off.

“Jesus Christ, Llew, cover that shit up,” Al growled.  Llewyn might have glared at him, but Al was already looking away after getting a glimpse of Llewyn’s cock.  It was smaller than Al’s, but then everything else of Llewyn’s was smaller than Al’s too.  Al picked up his laundry basket and carried it to the bedroom.

As Al left, Llewyn snapped, “Thanks for letting me use the shower, _Arthur_.”

_Passive-aggressive little shit,_ Al thought.  _I’m glad he’s leaving tomorrow.  I’m glad I’m getting rid of him._

He got undressed and put on his robe then went back to the kitchen to get more water and check on Llewyn.  Llewyn was wearing his shorts by that time and was shoving the last of his clothes into his bags.  He looked up at Arthur leaning back against the kitchen counter and drinking his water.

“You must piss, like, all the time,” Llewyn said.  He turned away again, looked down at his guitar, then put it in its case.

“Water’s healthy,” Al told him.  Silently, he added, _And it’s free, and you can’t drink it all up like you did everything else._   When he looked at Llewyn again, Llewyn was watching him, studying Al’s bare legs and then his face.  Al watched Llewyn back, his short legs and tousled hair and sallow skin.  The only criticism Al could leverage was, “You should shave.  This look doesn’t work for you.”

Llewyn sat back down on the couch before he replied, “And you should lose the cowboy hat and use your real name.  The country-western shit _really_ doesn’t work for you.”

Al had had enough of being nice.  He had had enough of Llewyn Davis, of Llewyn needing Al because Al was all he had left, and of Al wanting Llewyn because Llewyn was everything completely wrong for him.

“Fuck you, Llew,” said Al.  He put his glass in the sink.

Llewyn glared at him and retorted, “It’s Llewyn.  I don’t like ‘Llew.’”

Al glared back and replied, “I don’t care.  It’s easier to say.”

“You don’t really have a girlfriend, do you?” said Llewyn, and Al flinched.  Llewyn knew—of course he knew.  He probably knew right away that the girlfriend was an invention meant to get rid of him.  The real question was how much else did Llewyn know.  Did Llewyn know Al would prefer a boyfriend over a girlfriend any day of the week?  Did Llewyn know Al wanted that boyfriend to be sullen and cocky with smoldering brown eyes and a beard that didn’t work for him?

“It’s okay,” Llewyn said abruptly.  He looked almost sorry.  “I get it, you lied so I wouldn’t hang around.  But you don’t have to lie.  I’m leaving tomorrow.  Tomorrow morning.”

Al tried to say “Good” and couldn’t, because it wasn’t.  Sure, it was _better_ , better that Llewyn went and Al never saw him again, but Al couldn’t kid himself that it would be _good_.  Llewyn was right about the water making Al need to piss, though, and Al used that as a reason to escape.

Al wasn’t sure what made him confess as he passed the couch and Llewyn, “You’re right.  I don’t really have a girlfriend.”

When he’d finished in the bathroom, Al went to his bedroom and put his laundry away.  He intended to go straight to bed after that so he wouldn’t have to see Llewyn again, but then he heard music coming from the living room.  After a moment, Al realized he was hearing his own voice.

Once he was done with the laundry, Al went back down the hall and stood in the doorway.  Llewyn was sitting on the couch, listening to the end of the last song on the A side of _Five & Twenty Questions._  Al watched him, took in the thoughtful expression on Llewyn’s tired face, the ugly bruising around his eye, the slight part between his sculpted lips.  He was lost in the music, in Al’s voice.

Llewyn noticed Al when he got up to flip the record.  He stopped and looked at Al watching him.

“What are you doing?” Al asked him.

“I wanted to hear what you sound like by yourself,” Llewyn told him.  He looked away to turn the record over and start the arm moving across the B side.  “You have a good voice.”  It was the first non-backhanded compliment he’d ever paid Al.

“Thanks,” Al murmured.  He knew he should just go to bed, but he went to the couch instead and sat down and put his arms up along the back.  Llewyn stood at the record player and watched it spin the record as the needle vibrated out the sound of Al singing “Henry Lee.”  Then Llewyn came and sat down on the couch beside Al, and he stayed there while they listened to the rest of the album.

When it was over, Llewyn said, “I don’t see much money here.  But I guess you don’t either.”  Al supposed he should be offended, but Llewyn said it in a tired way, almost like he was commiserating.

So Al only said, “No.  But I’m not giving up.”  Llewyn was sitting close beside him, and Al could feel the warmth of Llewyn’s body on his side.  Llewyn had to be cold though, wearing just his t-shirt and shorts.  Al curled his arm a little around Llewyn’s shoulders and went on, “Every time you have to make a decision, you get a choice.  If I keep choosing long enough, eventually I’ll make the right one.”

“I won’t,” said Llewyn.  Al heard him sigh, and Llewyn looked over at the window.  “Maybe in another life, you were an asshole and I was a nice guy.  But not anymore.”

And that was it, that was the small glimpse of self-awareness that redeemed Llewyn Davis.  There was self-awareness, but there was also a hopelessness in Llewyn’s voice that made Al want to help him.  It was different from the look Llewyn gave Al when he wanted something, because this wasn’t calculated.  This was Llewyn giving up, and it made Al want to give him something to hope for.  It made Al want to love him.

Al sighed and tilted his head back on the couch and against the wall.  He was giving up too.

“Fuck me,” he said.  “I knew this would happen if I let you stay long enough.”

Llewyn quipped, “You knew I would fuck you if you let me stay long enough?”  It might have just been another one of the jokes Llewyn thought were funny, but then he leaned his head back against Al’s arm.  Al’s heartbeat quickened, and Llewyn asked, “Do you mean ‘fuck’ literally or figuratively?”

“It was an epithet,” Al mumbled.  “I didn’t mean you, specifically, fucking me.”

“Oh,” said Llewyn.  He didn’t move his head, and he added, “Well, if you did, and you meant it literally, at least you won’t get pregnant if the condom breaks.”

Al had given up on trying to dislike Llewyn, but he hadn’t expected the surrender to lead to _this_.  He still thought Llewyn might be trying to be funny.

In case that was it, Al elaborated, “I meant that I’m an idiot because I knew that if I spent enough time around you, I would find something to like about you.  And I let you stay anyway.”

Llewyn didn’t reply, and he still didn’t move his head.  Al sighed and made a quip of his own.

“And I don’t even have any condoms.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Llewyn, right away.  “Neither do I.  I don’t care.”

Al felt Llewyn turn his head and look up at him, but Al didn’t move.  He was _afraid_ to move.  Up to that point, he’d known what to expect; he’d had Llewyn figured out.  Now everything had changed.

“So, want me to fuck you?” Llewyn asked him.

Al finally looked back down at him.  Llewyn was watching him with those beautiful eyes, that slight wrinkle of perplexity between his brows.  Llewyn didn’t look sure about anything either.

“Yeah,” Al ventured.

“You got any lube?”

“No,” said Al.  “I got Vaseline though.  That’d probably work.”

“Why do you have Vaseline?” asked Llewyn.

Al shrugged.  “It’s winter.  It’s good for chapped lips.”

“Oh,” said Llewyn.  He drew his lower lip into his mouth thoughtfully.  “I guess it would be.  You gonna let me come in you?  I’ll pull out if you want me to.”

“You can come in me,” said Al.

“Okay.”  Llewyn just looked at him until Al got up and went to the hall.

“Well, come on,” Al muttered, and Llewyn followed him to the bedroom.

Al found the Vaseline and turned off his lamp; enough light from the street came in through the window for him to see Llewyn, and it made Llewyn’s skin look blue-white and his bruises stand out.  Al pulled the bedsheets down while Llewyn stripped out of his shirt.  When Llewyn tugged off his shorts, Al swallowed and shrugged out of his bathrobe.

“Fuck,” said Llewyn.

“What?” Al muttered.  He sat down on the bed.

“Your cock,” said Llewyn.  “I didn’t think it would be that big.”  He sat down next to Al, and they looked at each other a second before Llewyn said, “Look, if you don’t want to do this, just say so.”

“I want to,” said Al.  “I’m just nervous.”

“Don’t be nervous.”  Llewyn looked up at him, and Al wanted to kiss him.  He wanted it more than he wanted Llewyn to fuck him.  Llewyn said again, “Don’t be nervous.  Why’re you nervous?  Fucking’s not worth getting nervous over.”  He dropped his head to look down at his bare knees.  “I’m not worth getting nervous over.”

“Yeah you are,” said Al, before he could talk himself out of being honest, at least a little.  “Come here.”  He put his arm around Llewyn’s shoulders and drew him closer, and put his other hand on Llewyn’s cock.  Al thought Llewyn might pull away from his arm, but Llewyn leaned into him.  His cock started to swell in Al’s hand, and Llewyn rocked his hips up.

“Fuck,” Llewyn breathed, then after a minute, “Fuck, that’s good.”  His whole body twitched against Al’s side; then he dropped his hand into Al’s lap and closed his fingers around Al’s erection.

“Damn, you’re already fucking hard,” Llewyn muttered.  He looked down, and Al looked down too at Llewyn’s small, tan hand stroking him.  The sight made him get even harder.

Al tilted his head back and groaned, “Oh _fuck_ ,” when Llewyn flicked his thumb in just the right spot under the head.

“You need it bad, don’t you?” Llewyn observed.  “You’re leaking all over the place.”  Al lifted his head to glare at him, but Llewyn wasn’t mocking him.  He put his free hand to Al’s chest and pushed until Al lay back.  He kept stroking Al the whole time, smearing Al’s precum down his shaft.

“You need it, you need me to fuck you,” Llewyn said.  He thrust into Al’s hand, and Al tightened it around him again and pulled.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I need you to fuck me, Llew.  I need you.”

“Shit,” Llewyn hissed.  He leaned over Al to grab the jar of Vaseline and fumbled the lid off.  “Here, lube me up.”

Al stuck his fingers in the Vaseline then smeared it up and down Llewyn’s cock and began to jerk it again.  The heat from their skin melted the Vaseline and turned it slick instead of tacky.  Al let go and was about to stick his fingers in the jar again when Llewyn said, “No, that’s good, that’s enough.”

“No, I’ve gotta—I need some on me too,” Al mumbled.  “In me.”

“Let me do it,” said Llewyn.  Al stared at him, but Llewyn was already digging around in the jar.  “You keep jacking me, just don’t let me come.”

So Al wrapped his fist around Llewyn’s cock and kept pumping it while Llewyn pushed Al’s thighs apart and his knees up and reached under him.  Al felt Llewyn push a finger in him, and he drew in a hiss of breath through his teeth.  Llewyn stopped moving.

“That hurt?” he asked.

“Fuck no, don’t stop,” muttered Al.  “Feels good.”

Llewyn leaned over him, pushing up into Al’s fist with awkward little thrusts, and fucked Al with his finger.  It did feel good, but it wasn’t enough.

“Put in two,” Al told Llewyn.

“Yeah, you want more?”  Llewyn’s voice sounded raspy.  “Tell me you want it.”

“I want more.”  Al looked up at him.  Llewyn was looking at his body, but then he lifted his eyes to Al’s face and watched it as he pushed two fingers in.

“Fuck,” Al breathed.  He licked his lips and kept staring at Llewyn.  A quick little smile curled Llewyn’s perfect mouth.

“You feel tight,” he said; then he looked down and watched himself fingering Al.  Al closed his eyes and tilted his head back, trying not to think about Llewyn looking at him there.  Llewyn was good with his fingers, and Al gasped.

“Llew,” he groaned.

“Yeah, Al?”  Llewyn scissored his fingers inside Al, and Al gasped.  “You want something?”

“Nngh,” said Al.

“You’re so fucking hard,” Llewyn said.  Al felt Llewyn’s other hand close over his cock and start stroking it again.  “You want it now, you want me to fuck you?”

“Yeah,” said Al.

“Say it.”

“Want you to fuck me,” Al groaned.  “God, Llewyn, fuck me, fuck me hard.”

Llewyn swore again under his breath.  He got behind Al and pushed Al’s long legs up.  Then Llewyn thrust his cock in all the way, in one quick movement.

“ _Shit!_ ” Al yelped at the pain, and he clenched up.

“Fuck, sorry,” gasped Llewyn.  He clutched Al’s thighs to his chest, calves on either side of his head, and stared down at Al staring back up.  “Does it hurt?”

“Fuck yes, you’re hurting me, hold on,” Al growled.  He closed his eyes and breathed.  Llewyn burned inside him, and Al felt the smaller man’s body trembling against his legs.

“Want me to pull out?”

“ _No_.”  Al managed to relax, and the burning faded.  He tensed around Llewyn’s cock, feeling it hard and unyielding inside him, and Llewyn groaned.

“Oh God, fuck, Al. . . .”

Al opened his eyes again at the sound of Llewyn moaning his made-up cowboy name.  Llewyn was still watching him, those incredible eyes heavy-lidded, with his cheek pressed to Al’s left calf.  Al tensed again, and Llewyn’s lips parted in a gasp.  Al’s own lips twitched in a half-smile to see how much he could make Llewyn want him.

“Please,” Llewyn hissed.

“Go on,” said Al, “fuck me, Llewyn.”  He watched Llewyn’s face as the smaller man gripped his thighs and started fucking him.  It didn’t hurt anymore, and Al pushed back against each thrust.  Llewyn grunted and swore and fucked Al harder, hunching forward between his legs with dark curls of hair falling over his forehead.  Al rocked backward then up, curving his back so he could reach Llewyn and hold on to his hips.  Al’s fingers sank into a half inch of flesh and felt bone beneath it.

They didn’t speak until Llewyn’s angle shifted, and his cock drove up into Al’s prostate, and Al gave a harsh groan.

“That good?” Llewyn hissed.

“Yeah—”  Al cut himself off with another groan when Llewyn did it again.  He came the third time Llewyn did it; it had been too long, and he was already too in love with Llewyn, for him to last any longer.  He moaned, “Oh God, Llew, _Llew_ ,” and held Llewyn in against him.  Al’s hands squeezed the smaller man’s tight ass and felt his gluteal muscles clenching as Llewyn started to come too, inside him.  Llewyn growled deep in his throat and shuddered.

When Al had finished, he lay there with his eyes closed, breathing hard and trembling.  Out of his limited range of experience, Llewyn was the best he’d ever had.  Llewyn stayed hunched over him a few seconds before pulling out, and Al hated the empty feeling he got after.  But then Llewyn lay on top of him, apparently not caring that Al’s cum was all over his chest and stomach, and when Al opened his eyes, the smaller man was looking down at him.

“Arthur,” Llewyn said.  “You really shouldn’t get your name changed.”

Al glared at him.  “Because the country shit doesn’t work for me?”

Llewyn replied, “Because I like ‘Arthur’ better than ‘Al.’  I can’t yell ‘Al!’ when I fuck you.  I’d sound stupid.”  The statement implied that Llewyn fucking him wasn’t a one-time thing, and Al wondered if Llewyn meant it.

“And I’d sound stupid if I yelled ‘Llewyn.’  Who said I was going to let you fuck me again, anyway?” Al muttered.

“Yeah, you _let_ me,” Llewyn retorted.  “Like you did me some huge favor.  I don’t even fuck guys.”

“Neither do I.”

“Could’ve fooled me.  I wasn’t your first,” said Llewyn.  Al felt his cheeks burn, and he glared up at Llewyn, wondering, _How did he know?_

Llewyn looked back down at him then said, “You don’t have to lie.  You weren’t mine, either.  Just my first sober.”

“Third.  Second sober,” Al finally admitted.  He shut his eyes and bit his lip, then added, “First to make me come.  The other times, I had to jerk off after.”  He wasn’t sure if that made him less or more homosexual.

“You came a lot,” Llewyn observed.

“It’s been a while,” Al muttered by way of defense.  “And I told you, drinking water is healthy.  Doesn’t just make you piss all the time.”

“What do you like about me?” asked Llewyn, out of nowhere.  Al opened one eye and squinted up at the bruised, handsome face peering down at him.  “You said you knew you’d find something to like about me.  What is it?”

“Hell if I know,” said Al.  If he tried to explain it, Llewyn would think he was crazy.  Al closed his eye again and said, “You made me come.”

“You said it before we fucked, so it was something else.”

Al groaned, “I don’t _know_.  You’re beautiful.  And there’s something in you.”  He was really just saying the same thing over and over.  He opened his eyes.  Llewyn was still looking down at him, that crease of worry or concern or whatever it was back between his brows, and even with the black eye and the bruises, he was the most desirable thing Al had ever seen.  Al wanted to touch him, and he put his hand up near the side of Llewyn’s head but couldn’t quite lay it against the tousled dark hair.

“Jim said you don’t care about anybody anymore except yourself, but he was wrong,” Al whispered.  “You don’t even care about yourself.”  He couldn’t put the rest into words, the idea that Llewyn’s lack of caring made Al want him all the more.  He shoved his fingers into Llewyn’s hair and ran them back around his head.

Al couldn’t say he wanted to take care of Llewyn, that he wanted to be the only one who did, that he wanted Llewyn to love him, or that he wanted any of the other dozen things he could never have, so he said, “But maybe you _were_ a nice guy in another life, because there’s something of that still in you.”

Llewyn promptly returned, “And you’re still a little bit of an asshole.”  Before Al could think of a comeback, or even lift his hand from the back of Llewyn’s head, Llewyn kissed him.

“Mmpgh!” said Al, more or less.  Llewyn’s mouth was on his without preamble, open with his tongue prodding Al’s lips, and Al wondered how this had all happened.  How had he gone from recording backup vocals on some stupid song of Jim Berkey’s to being kissed by the last man he’d ever expected to want him?  Things like that didn’t happen to Al.  Improbable things happened to Al all the time, true, but never _good_ things.  And Al decided that Llewyn Davis kissing him was a good thing, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Al opened his mouth under Llewyn’s, and Llewyn’s tongue pushed in between his lips, and Al sucked on it, hard.  Llewyn groaned like he had when he came and opened his mouth wider to fit it over Al’s, and Al clenched his fingers in Llewyn’s hair and held his head down and kissed him.

When Al was breathless and his lips hurt, he let go of Llewyn’s hair.  Llewyn lifted his head, gasping a harsh breath, and they stared at each other in the secondhand light coming in from the street.

“Oh fuck, Llew,” Al whispered.

Llewyn put a hand to his mouth and wiped their spit off his lips with the back of it; then he rolled to Al’s right, off of him.  Al thought he was going to get up and go to the couch without a word, but instead Llewyn stayed there in Al’s narrow bed with his bruise-splotched back pressed to Al’s side.  Al fell asleep without moving, with his mouth and ass both hurting a little and his heartbeat slowing except for a flutter whenever he thought about Llewyn kissing him.

When Al woke up, it was daylight, but early.  Llewyn was still asleep, and Al was holding him, spooning.  Llewyn’s hair felt soft pressed to Al’s cheek, and his back was warm against Al’s chest, and his stomach moved in and out with each breath under Al’s arm.  Al held him until Llewyn stirred and grumbled.  He pulled away from Al and got up, then stumbled to the bathroom.  Al realized he had to piss too, and he got up when Llewyn came back.

“Fuck,” Al muttered.  Llewyn was burrowing back into bed, escaping the cold, and he looked up.

“What?”

“Nothing.”  Some of Llewyn’s cum had run down Al’s thighs during the night, and Al’s own cum was dried on his chest.  Al mumbled, “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

“Before I fuck you again?” Llewyn asked.  He pulled the sheet over his head.  “Shit, it’s cold.”

“I still didn’t say I was going to let you fuck me again.”  Al shivered and looked down at the bed and the shape of Llewyn’s body in it.

“Go piss or whatever it is you got up for,” grumbled Llewyn, “and come back to bed.  And don’t bother cleaning up, I wanna fuck you again.”

When he returned from the bathroom, Al got back in bed.  Llewyn was jerking off under the covers, and as soon as Al lay down beside him, he grasped Al’s hand and put it on his cock.  Al started stroking him, and Llewyn thrust into his hand.

“Fuck, Al,” Llewyn breathed.  Al put an arm around Llewyn and drew him closer, and Llewyn didn’t try to pull away.  He curled into Al’s body and groaned against his shoulder.  After a second, Al bent his head to kiss Llewyn’s neck, and Llewyn fumbled between Al’s legs and began to grope him.  As Al licked and bit at his skin, Llewyn tilted his head back and swore; then he contorted himself to press his mouth to Al’s chest.  Al felt the rough scratch of Llewyn’s beard over one nipple, then Llewyn’s tongue teasing it erect, then Llewyn’s lips closing over it and sucking.

Al gasped, “Shit, oh God, Llew!”  He heard Llewyn’s laugh, rough and scratchy like his beard.  Al kissed his neck and shoulder the way he wanted to kiss Llewyn’s mouth.  Llewyn rolled on his back and pulled Al on top of him.  He stretched out an arm to fumble blindly for the Vaseline and stuck his fingers in it.

“Ride me,” Llewyn growled.  He reached behind Al and smeared the Vaseline on them both.  “Sit on my cock and ride me.”

Al rubbed back against Llewyn’s cock then sank down on it slowly, gasping.  Llewyn held his hips and fucked him, looking up at Al’s face with his eyelids half lowered and his lips parted.  Al leaned forward and braced his hands on either side of Llewyn’s chest and looked down into Llewyn’s eyes as he moved on his cock.  Llewyn came first, swearing, then collapsed on his back and closed his eyes.  But then his hand closed over Al’s cock and jerked it until Al came too.

This time, Llewyn didn’t show any signs of wanting to kiss Al afterwards, and by the time Al got up to take his shower, Llewyn had fallen asleep again.  Al showered and washed off the Vaseline and Llewyn’s cum, then went back to the bedroom to get his bathrobe.  Llewyn didn’t wake up until Al was in the kitchen; then Al heard him start the shower.  Al was washing the dishes when Llewyn came in and finished packing up his stuff.

“Do you want to go get breakfast?” Al asked Llewyn, without looking back at him.  “I’ll buy.”

He wasn’t surprised when Llewyn said, “No, I need to get going.”  Llewyn went to the door and stood there.  Al took his time finishing the dishes, then looked at Llewyn.

“Yeah,” Al said.  Llewyn had a strange look on his face that Al couldn’t quite read.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” he said.  “And for doing my laundry.”

“Yeah,” Al said.  He went to the door and held it open for Llewyn to take his stuff out into the hall.  He was still a little sore from Llewyn fucking him, but other than that, he tried not to feel anything.

Out in the hall, Llewyn turned back to him and said, “Don’t forget to write me and tell me where you are.”  He looked up at Al standing in the doorway.  Llewyn said, “So I can come see you and get my guitar.  It’ll be something to look forward to.”

Al muttered, “Getting your guitar back,” and kept trying not to feel anything.  He thought he did pretty well, but the faint crease appeared between Llewyn’s eyebrows, and Llewyn said, “No, seeing you again.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Al said.  It was getting harder not to feel anything, because he didn’t want Llewyn to be lying.

“I’m not lying,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”

Al shouldn’t—he _knew_ he shouldn’t—but he reached out a hand toward Llewyn.  Llewyn dropped the bags he was carrying and stepped close enough for Al to touch his face.  Al slid his fingers over Llewyn’s beard along his jaw, and Llewyn kept looking at him with those half-closed eyes.  Al put his other hand in Llewyn’s hair and pulled him forward.  When Llewyn came to him, Al leaned down to kiss him.

And Llewyn kissed him back, lifting his hands to Al’s head and clenching his fingers into his hair.  Al was glad he’d decided to grow it out some, because there was more for Llewyn to hold on to.  They kissed there, out in the hall where Al’s neighbors could walk right out of their door and see them, and Al didn’t care.  He didn’t stop kissing Llewyn until his lips and jaw and face all hurt.

“Fuck, Llew,” Al breathed when Llewyn stepped back and looked up at him again.  “You really should lose the beard.  It’s scratchy.”  Llewyn’s pretty mouth quirked, and he almost smiled.

“I’ll lose the beard when you lose the cowboy hat, Arthur,” said Llewyn.  He picked up his bags and turned to go down the hall, and Al went back inside.  The apartment still seemed like a dump, but it felt larger and too quiet without Llewyn.  He’d left his albums behind, again, and Al went over and picked one up.  He took his own album off the player and put Llewyn’s on, then sat down on the couch and listened to it and looked at the picture of Llewyn on the sleeve.  It didn’t really look like Llewyn, not the Llewyn Al knew.

_I’m never going to see him again,_ Al thought.  The day before, Llewyn had written down how Al could reach him, and if Al really did move, he’d send Llewyn his new address and give Llewyn every chance to retrieve his guitar.  _But he won’t.  He said he wants a fresh start, and that won’t include his guitar.  And it sure won’t include me._

\--

To be continued


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Llewyn's singing near the end is the Smashing Pumpkins's "Fat Man Blues." Apologies to Billy Corgan, but it really isn't one of their best.

**August, 1961**

While he was in the Merchant Marines, Llewyn never got any mail, because he hadn’t told anyone where he was going.  Then, almost six months in, he got a letter, and it was from Al Cody.

Llewyn had tried not to think about Al too much.  When he first went in the Merchant Marines, he’d decided to swear off sex for a while, even before they shipped out, and he didn’t believe that thinking about past one-night stands would make that any easier.  Soon enough, he’d forgotten about Al, more or less, and then he got Al’s letter.

It was short.  Al had moved, and he sent Llewyn his new address.  The address was to a house, not an apartment, and Al didn’t write anything personal.  Llewyn wondered if he’d moved in with someone, or gotten married.  Then as he folded the letter back up, he saw what Al had added at the very bottom of the paper: “Come get your guitar when you get out.  I’ll be glad to see you.  -Al”

_He’ll be glad to see me,_ Llewyn thought.  No one was ever glad to see Llewyn.

He didn’t write Al back, but he kept thinking about Al anyway.  He thought about Al on the ship; he thought about Al in port, unloading and loading; and he thought about Al on shore leave, when Llewyn went to find a hooker for his first lay since he shipped out.  He’d planned on finding a girl, but thinking about Al, he considered finding a guy instead.  Then he thought more about Al and how he’d never find a hooker, even a male one, anything like him.  Llewyn changed his mind and went back to the ship, and since everyone else was out on shore leave and he had some privacy, he jacked off thinking about Al.  It didn’t really satisfy him, but he came hard, and he wouldn’t have been satisfied with a hooker either.

Llewyn regretted his fixation, or his sentimentality, or whatever it was, once they’d shipped out again and his only option for getting laid was hitting up one of the other Mariners.  He doubted he’d have trouble finding one willing—they were all pretty desperate—but again, none of them was anything like Al.  Every time Llewyn came close to hooking up with someone, he’d think about Al’s dark eyes and the desperate way Al had kissed him, and he’d change his mind.

_I’m not in love with him,_ Llewyn thought.  Llewyn Davis didn’t fall in love.  Love was something he talked about, a word he threw around to get what he needed, and he didn’t need anything from Al now except to get his guitar back.  Al would give back the guitar no matter how many other people Llewyn fucked while he was gone.  Llewyn could even _tell_ Al he’d been fucking other people, because Al wouldn’t care.  To Al, Llewyn was just some asshole friend of Jim’s that Al did a few favors for, because Al was a nice guy.  And if Llewyn was a good lay willing to fuck an otherwise nice guy up the ass in return for it, that was fine, but it didn’t mean Al cared about him.

Out at sea, Llewyn lay in his bunk and thought about Al’s ass, and fucking it, and how tight it had been even the second time around, and he stroked his cock under cover of his blanket while biting his lip to keep himself quiet.  He thought about how Al had grabbed _his_ ass when he came, deep voice hissing, “Oh God, Llew, _Llew_ ,” and Llewyn came too.  Again, it wasn’t all that satisfying, but afterwards, Llewyn was finally able to go to sleep.  He didn’t dream about Al.  He dreamed about his guitar.

But Llewyn thought about Al for the next couple weeks and finally decided he should write back.  It was the polite thing to do.  He thanked Al for holding on to the guitar and expressed his hopes that Al liked his new home.  Before signing his name, Llewyn read back over the note and decided it was good enough.  Then he thought about how Al had looked at him standing in the doorway of the dumpy apartment, the way a hurt look had flickered through Al’s dark eyes.  He thought about how Al’s voice had sounded saying, “You’re beautiful,” and how his hand had felt raking through Llewyn’s hair.

Llewyn scrawled across the bottom of the note, “I want out already—hate this shit, all of it, and I can’t get off.  Wish I had you under me right now, I’d fuck your brains out.  Soon as I get back, I’m coming for you.”  He paused, pen hovering over the paper, then signed it “Llew” without rereading what he’d written.

Al didn’t write back.  He’d sent his new phone number along with his address, and Llewyn thought about calling him, but it would have cost too much.  And anyway, if Al had wanted to talk to Llewyn, he would have written again.  Llewyn felt stupid for adding what he’d added—the thank you was nice and acceptable, but telling Al that he missed him, that had been stupid.

_That’s not what I told him,_ Llewyn thought.  _I said I wanted to fuck him again.  That doesn’t mean I miss him._

Llewyn tried not to think about Al anymore after that, but sometimes he reread Al’s letter to him, and he jerked off imagining it was Al’s hand on his cock, and he didn’t ever get around to fucking anyone else.

\--

**February, 1962**

When he got back to New York, Llewyn went to find Al’s new address.  Llewyn would have gone somewhere else first, but he didn’t think anyone else would want to see him.  Not that Al wanted to see him either, but Llewyn had an excuse—a _reason_ to go to Al.

Al lived in the middle of nowhere, about thirty minutes out of the city by car, and Llewyn had to walk the last couple of miles because no one was driving into Al’s neighborhood.  It was a nice neighborhood, very suburban like somewhere Ozzie and Harriet might have lived.  Llewyn thought he’d probably go crazy if he had to live there, and he wondered why Al had chosen it.

He finally got to Al’s house and double-checked the number, then stood outside for a while.  The curtains were closed in the front, but the lights were on, and a glow from them filtered out into the dark yard.  Llewyn wondered if it was really Al’s house, if he had made a mistake somehow, or if Al had lied about his address.

_That’s stupid,_ Llewyn thought, _why would he bother to write at all if he was going to lie?_   Still, it didn’t seem possible that Al Cody would have moved out of the city to a house like that, just like it didn’t seem possible that Al Cody could be on the other side of the front door after Llewyn hadn’t seen him for a whole year.

_I can’t stand out here all night,_ Llewyn thought, and he knocked on the door.

Al opened the door, looked down at Llewyn, and said, “I thought you’d call first.”  He was wearing a suit, but he’d grown out his hair some, and it looked rumpled.  His eyes hadn’t changed.

“I didn’t want to call until I knew I could find this place.”  Llewyn gestured at the house and lawn and neighborhood.  “This is the sticks, Al.”

“Well, you found it.  I wasn’t expecting you,” said Al.  He didn’t look or sound very happy to see Llewyn, but he stepped out of the doorway so Llewyn could come in.  Llewyn looked around at Al’s living room and the attached kitchen off to his right.  It was a nice house, better than the apartment, but not the kind of place he’d expected Al to live.  There wasn’t a lot in the way of furniture, and it was all very clean, and Llewyn wondered again if Al lived with someone.

“Do you still have my guitar?” Llewyn asked Al.

“Of course,” said Al.  “I told you I did.”  He turned around and went into a hall at the back of the living room.  Llewyn shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked down at his bags on the carpeted floor.

_I shouldn’t be here,_ Llewyn thought.

Al came back with Llewyn’s guitar case and set it down on the floor.

“There,” he said.

Llewyn knelt down and opened the case.  Al watched him pick up the guitar and look it over and smile.  Llewyn tucked it back into the case and closed it up, then stood up and looked at Al.

“Thanks, Al,” he said.

“It’s Arthur,” Al told him.  Llewyn stared at him; it took him a minute to remember Al’s real name.  Al looked vaguely embarrassed, the way he had a year ago when Llewyn asked who Arthur Milgrum was, and said, “I decided not to get it changed.”

“Okay, Arthur.  I’m still Llewyn,” said Llewyn.

“Okay, Llew,” said Arthur.

“Fuck you,” said Llewyn, although he was starting to kind of like it when Al, Arthur called him “Llew.”  Arthur trudged past him to the sink in the kitchen.

“Do you need a place to sleep?” he asked.

Llewyn said, “That’s not why I came by.  I came for my guitar.”

When Arthur muttered, “I know,” he sounded exasperated, and like he didn’t believe it.  Llewyn looked around the room again.  What little furniture there was looked new, and Llewyn wondered who had picked it out.

Llewyn asked, “That’s a new couch, isn’t it?”  Arthur turned back to him and walked to the edge of the open kitchen, holding a glass of water.

“Yeah,” he said, “and you ain’t being very subtle.”  Llewyn looked over his shoulder and glared at Arthur.  He had just been making an observation, not implying that he wanted to sleep on the couch.

“But if you shower first, I’ll let you sleep in an actual bed,” Arthur told him.  “I have a guest room now.  My old bed’s in there.”

“You’ve sold out, Al,” said Llewyn.  He couldn’t imagine Al Cody with a guest room.

“Royalties,” said Arthur.  It was just what Llewyn had suspected, but he hadn’t suspected the second part: “And I have a job.”

Llewyn turned to face Arthur and insisted, “You’ve sold out.  Do you still play anymore?”  When Arthur shook his head no, Llewyn went on, “Sing?  Write?”  Arthur just kept shaking his head.

“Jesus Christ, I’m gone a year, and you give up,” Llewyn muttered.  Arthur was like a different person now, even less like the kind of person who would sleep with Llewyn than he had been a year ago.  “You said you weren’t giving up until you made the right choice.”

Arthur scowled at him, dark eyes glittering, and said, “Fuck you, Llewyn.  You gave up first, you and your fresh start.  The only difference is that you have a guitar, and I have a bed.  _Two_ beds, _and_ a couch.”  He turned away and went back to the sink.

“Sometimes giving up _is_ the right choice,” Arthur went on.  Llewyn was still thinking about the implication of “you have a guitar, and I have a bed.”

“You sold your guitar?” Llewyn groaned.

“Yeah.  I sold my guitar.”  Arthur didn’t say anything else, and Llewyn watched him leaning over the sink.  The suit looked good on Arthur, and so did the longer hairstyle.  He looked handsome.

“I met somebody,” said Llewyn.  He wanted to see how Arthur would react, but Arthur _didn’t_ react.  He didn’t move from the sink.

“Good,” said Arthur.  “That’s great.”  After a minute, he straightened up, filled another glass of water, and drank it down.  He glanced at Llewyn and scowled again.

“Go take a shower.  Bathroom’s right over there.”  He gestured at a door behind Llewyn, near the hall, then added, “You can do your own laundry, I have a machine.”  Arthur put down his glass and stalked past Llewyn toward the hall, not looking at him again.  Llewyn grabbed at his arm.

“Arthur, it didn’t work out,” Llewyn said.  That didn’t get a reaction either, except that Arthur pulled his arm away.

“What didn’t?”

“The person I met,” Llewyn said, “and me.”  The person Llewyn had met was fictional, but then, so was Al Cody.  Llewyn wasn’t really lying.

“Okay,” Arthur said.  “Go take a shower, if you’re staying here tonight.  You’re filthy.”

Llewyn showered in the bathroom off the living room.  It was little, but it was still bigger than the bathroom in Al’s old apartment.  The water was hot, and the soap reminded him of how Al had smelled when Llewyn slept in his arms, a year ago.

Llewyn got out and toweled off—the guest towels were fluffy and didn’t feel like they’d ever been used before—then pulled his shorts back on.  Llewyn studied himself in the mirror, raked his hands through his wet hair, and trimmed his beard a little.  All the clothes in his bags were dirty, so he balled up the rest of what he’d been wearing and dropped it on top when he came back into the living room.  Arthur wasn’t there, and Llewyn went looking for him.  He was standing in a small bedroom devoid of personal effects, looking at the bed.  He had undressed and was wearing the same bathrobe he’d had a year ago.  Llewyn waited in the doorway, but Arthur didn’t notice him.

Finally, Llewyn asked, “This where I’m sleeping?” and Arthur turned around.

“I guess,” he said.  He looked Llewyn over, then said, “You need a haircut.  And a shave.”

“Do you still have that cowboy hat?”  Llewyn glared at Arthur and started back to the living room and his bags.  “Where’s the washing machine?”

Arthur showed him—it was in a small laundry room off the other side of the hall—and disappeared.  Llewyn dumped his clothes in and added some soap and started the washer.  He watched the machine shaking, then went back into the living room.  Arthur was there holding his glass.  Llewyn stood next to him and held his hand out.

“I’m thirsty,” he said.  He wondered what Arthur would do.  Arthur stared up at him, but then he just handed the glass over.  Llewyn drank from it and watched Arthur at the same time.

As Arthur took the glass back, he asked, “Have you eaten?  I’m sorry, I should have asked.”  He really looked sorry.  “I eat dinner out most nights, but I probably have something.”

“It’s okay.  I’m not hungry,” Llewyn said.  He turned away from Arthur and looked at the rest of the couch instead.  He asked, “You eat out?  Are you seeing someone?”

“I don’t like to cook,” said Arthur.  “It isn’t worth it, just for me.”  He didn’t say anything else, so Llewyn sat down on the opposite end of the couch with a lot of distance between them.  Arthur glanced at him and said, “You should put on a shirt.”

Llewyn looked down at his bare chest and wondered why Arthur didn’t want to see it.

“Look, do you want me to leave?” Llewyn muttered.  “I’ll leave.  I know it’s been months since I heard from you, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Make up your mind,” snapped Arthur, “either you need to stay or you don’t.  If I tell you I want you to leave, where will you go?”

_He does want me to leave,_ Llewyn thought, and he shrugged.

“I don’t know.  I’ll hitch back to the city.  Not _everyone_ there can still be pissed at me.  It’s been a year.”  Arthur didn’t say anything else, just sat there looking at him, and finally Llewyn gave up.  He said, “For Christ’s sake, Arthur,” and got up.  He raked a hand through his hair, trying to get it dry before he had to go back out in the cold weather, and went over to his guitar case.

“I’ll leave, okay, soon as my clothes are dry,” he said.  “Why didn’t you just hand my guitar out the door?  Why are you so fucking nice about it?”

“About what?” asked Arthur.

“I don’t know.”  Llewyn didn’t know how to put it into words, and he shrugged instead.  Finally, the best he could do was to say, “About us.  About it not working out.”

“ _What?_   There wasn’t any ‘us.’  There wasn’t even any _‘it_ ’ to work out.  I did you a favor.  I did you _several_ favors, and you left.  You didn’t call.  You met somebody.”  Arthur sounded upset _now_ , but he hadn’t cared before.

Llewyn muttered, “I met _you_ , and it didn’t work out.  I didn’t call— _you_ didn’t call.  You didn’t write back.  But you’re _too fucking nice_.  Just tell me to fuck off.”  He closed his eyes and shivered and wished that Arthur would do it and get it over with.

But Arthur just grumbled, “For the love of God, why don’t you ever wear any clothes?”  Llewyn heard him walking away, and when he looked back, Arthur was going down the hall.  Llewyn sighed and turned back to contemplate his guitar case and wonder how far he’d have to walk before he could hitch a ride.

Then Arthur came back and got in between Llewyn and the case.  He put his long arms around Llewyn and draped something over his shoulders.  It was a shirt, a hideous one with some kind of Indian-blanket-looking pattern on it in gold and burgundy and turquoise.  It smelled like Arthur, like Al.

Arthur grabbed one of Llewyn’s wrists and shoved his hand into the sleeve.  Llewyn put his arm through, then the other arm, and before he could start to button up the shirt, Arthur began doing it.  Llewyn looked down at the large, pale hands with their long fingers moving over the buttons.

“Al, this is the ugliest fucking shirt I have ever seen,” Llewyn said.  The long sleeves covered his hands, and it was warm.  All of Llewyn felt warm now except his feet.

“Fuck you, Llew,” Arthur cursed him.  “What are you going to do now?”  The shirt didn’t really change anything.  Arthur was being a nice guy, like usual.  Too nice for his own good, like usual.

“Wait for my clothes to dry and leave,” Llewyn answered.  Arthur had finished with most of the buttons, all of them except the top couple, and he was still holding the front of the shirt like he was thinking about buttoning the rest.

“No.  I mean, now that you’re back,” he said.  “Are you going back to performing?  Or shipping out again, or getting another job, or what?”

“I don’t know,” said Llewyn.  He looked up into Arthur’s dark eyes.  They were a darker brown even than Llewyn’s, not mahogany but just a shade lighter than black.  Llewyn couldn’t read Arthur’s expression.  Llewyn muttered, “I thought. . . I don’t know.”

Then Arthur said, “Don’t leave,” and he splayed his fingers over Llewyn’s chest.  His fingertips were warm on the bare skin exposed by the open collar of the shirt.

“Where did you go first?” he asked Llewyn.  “Before you came here.”

“What?”  Llewyn stared at him, baffled, then scowled.  “I didn’t.  I came here first.  I told you, I didn’t call because I didn’t know how long it would take me to get here, or if I could get a ride.  I had to walk the last couple miles.  You live in a lovely little neighborhood in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

He was talking too much, and when he stopped, Arthur said, “It’s the suburbs.”

“It took me this long to get here,” Llewyn repeated.  “I didn’t go anywhere else first.”  Llewyn looked at Arthur’s mouth, the full lips slightly parted and chapped, and wondered if he’d run out of Vaseline.  Then he looked back up into Arthur’s eyes and explained, “So if you kick me out, I still have other options.”

“I ain’t kicking you out,” said Arthur.  His voice had fallen to a murmur.  “You said when you came back, you were going to fuck me.”

Llewyn stared at him.  “You want me to fuck you?  You got a funny way of showing it.”

“No, I want to fuck _you_ ,” Arthur said.  He dropped his hands from Llewyn’s chest to his waist, then reached behind him to grope his ass as he whispered, “I was thinking about it.  I want to fuck you.”  Now the deepness of his voice was garbled with a throaty quality, lustful, the way it had sounded when Llewyn made him come a year ago.  Llewyn liked it.

But he told Arthur, “No, you’re not fucking me.  I don’t let guys fuck me.”  Arthur’s hands felt good on his ass, large and possessive, and when Arthur squeezed him, Llewyn leaned against his chest.  In disbelief, he muttered, “You were sitting there thinking about fucking me.”

Arthur whispered to him, “Not just now.  I meant, I was thinking about it in general.  While you were gone.”  His long arms tightened around Llewyn’s body, and his lips brushed Llewyn’s ear.  “I thought about you.”

Llewyn was pissed at him, and even as he clutched Arthur’s waist and pressed against his chest, he said, “You’re _not_ nice, you’re an asshole.  You let me think you didn’t want me here.  So I’m leaving, you hear me?  I’m leaving you.”

He meant it, even though Arthur felt good against him, even though he felt like what Llewyn had been missing over the past year and before that, too.  He started to lift his head so he could pull away, but then he put his mouth to Arthur’s neck instead and mumbled, “I thought about you too.”  It was easier to admit without having to see Arthur’s eyes and their judgment of him.

Llewyn whispered, “I thought about how you taste.”  He tasted Arthur’s neck, and it tasted like Al’s had, a little salty, the delicate pale skin catching against Llewyn’s own chapped lips and his beard and his teeth and his tongue as he licked all the way up Arthur’s tendon to the pulse point below his ear.  Llewyn bit him there, and Arthur gasped.

“I thought about how tight your ass felt when I fucked you,” Llewyn told him.  Arthur was grinding on him, the bulge of his cock rubbing against Llewyn’s abdomen through the robe and the shirt, and Llewyn’s own cock jumped when he thought about Arthur’s going in him.  “You’re not putting that thing up my ass.  You’re too big,” he said.

Arthur murmured, “No, I’m not.  It doesn’t have to hurt.”  His voice sounded urgent, but then his hands tightened on Llewyn’s ass again, and he whispered almost tenderly, “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?  When it comes to that.”

“That turns you on, doesn’t it?  Thinking about being the first guy to fuck my ass.”  Llewyn said it like an accusation, even though it turned him on too.

Arthur said, “I want to be your first for something,” as he craned his neck around Llewyn’s.  Llewyn felt Arthur’s lips against the side of his own neck, kissing him there.

“You were,” Llewyn told him.  “First guy I kissed.  _Only_ guy I’ve kissed.”  He caught himself grinding on Arthur, rubbing his own erection against the larger man’s upper thigh, and he pulled back.  Llewyn grasped the hair on the back of Arthur’s hair, grown out long and shaggy, and tugged on it to make Arthur look at him.  The almost-black eyes weren’t accusing anymore; they were dilated and oddly tender.

_I have to figure this out,_ Llewyn thought, _why I want this._

“Really?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah.  I don’t kiss,” Llewyn told him.  Then he yanked on Arthur’s hair and leaned up and kissed him.  Arthur’s lips opened for him right away, and his tongue writhed against Llewyn’s.  He groaned and tried to keep their mouths linked when Llewyn dropped away.

“Llew,” Arthur whispered hoarsely, the way Llewyn liked.  He was already leaning down to kiss Llewyn’s mouth again, as possessive with it was he was with Llewyn’s ass.  Llewyn heard himself groan too.

“Come to bed with me,” Arthur said when he paused his kisses.  He didn’t straighten up, and Llewyn could feel Arthur’s breath on his lips.

“My clothes. . . I’ll have to put them in the dryer,” Llewyn reminded him.  He kissed Arthur again then added, “And when they’re dry, I’m leaving.”  He didn’t want to leave, and he didn’t think Arthur wanted him to leave either, but Llewyn would insist on it.  Arthur deserved it for stringing him along.

_And it’s not like I’m in love with him,_ Llewyn thought.  _I just need to get laid.  I might as well do it with him since I’m already here, and after that, I’ll find somebody else.  Out of everyone there is in New York City, I can find somebody else._

Llewyn pushed his hands under Arthur’s worn robe, up his chest to his bony shoulders, then lifted his arms to knock the robe off.  Arthur shivered, skin going up in goosebumps.  Arthur had tied the robe shut at his waist, and it didn’t fall completely off until Llewyn untied it.

“Don’t leave,” Arthur said as he took a step forward and sort of tripped over the robe.  He kicked it aside without looking embarrassed at that, or at being completely naked and hard.  Arthur grasped Llewyn’s wrist and pulled him toward the hallway as he pleaded, “Stay.  I want you to stay.”

Llewyn had followed him even after Arthur let his arm go, but he stopped in the doorway of the room at the end of the hall when Arthur went in.  Llewyn tugged his shorts down and tossed them on the floor, but he kept Arthur’s ugly shirt on.  It was so big on him, it covered his hard-on.

“You sure?” Llewyn asked Arthur.  He wanted to hear it again.  Arthur owed him that much.

“I’m sure,” said Arthur.  He was walking backward toward the bed, and he sat down on it when he reached it.  The lamp was off, but from the light in the hallway, Llewyn could still see Arthur’s face and the hand the larger man held out to him.  He murmured, “Stay with me, Llewyn.”

Llewyn started for him before he said, “Okay, I’ll stay.  But you’re not fucking me.”

Arthur’s hand closed over his own and pulled Llewyn down into his lap, facing him, straddling him with their cocks touching.  He put his arms around Llewyn, and they kissed; then Arthur yanked the sheets back and dragged Llewyn to the head of the bed, and they lay there kissing and touching each other.  Arthur slid down Llewyn’s body, kissing his chest and stomach with his rough lips, then started going down on him.  His mouth was awkward at first, catching Llewyn with his teeth so that Llewyn cursed and yanked on his hair, but then Arthur started getting better at it.

Llewyn thrashed around and shifted on the bed until he could grab Arthur’s hips and haul the larger man up in reach of his mouth.  Llewyn licked the head of his cock, and Arthur yelped, “Oh fuck, Llew!”  He attacked Llewyn’s cock and got about half of it in his mouth.  Llewyn couldn’t manage more than the head of Arthur’s, but he liked how it tasted.  As Arthur sucked on him, he pushed his hand up under Llewyn’s balls.  Arthur rubbed him with a fingertip, and Llewyn twitched and groaned.

He pulled off Arthur’s cock and breathed, “Fuck.”

Arthur pulled off too and asked, “Can I finger you?”  Llewyn thought about it.

“You got any Vaseline?” he muttered.

“This time I got actual lube,” said Arthur.  He moved away from Llewyn to open a drawer in the nightstand beside his bed.

“What d’you got lube for?” Llewyn asked.  It was a stupid question, and Arthur gave him an incredulous look over his shoulder.

“What’s it to you?” he returned.

“Nothing,” said Llewyn.  “It isn’t anything to me.”  He laid his head back on the bed.  “You can fuck whoever you want.  Or let them fuck you, whatever.”

Arthur laughed, that sudden, deep, awkward laugh Llewyn remembered from a year ago.  He slid closer to Llewyn and sort of nuzzled his stomach, just above his cock.

“Are you jealous, Llew?” he asked.  He laughed again and kissed Llewyn’s stomach, then the head of his cock.

“No,” said Llewyn.  “I’m not jealous.”  He’d stayed hard, but he got even harder as Arthur kissed and licked him.

“You were gone for a year,” said Arthur.  “And you didn’t tell me to wait for you.  Bet _you_ didn’t wait.”

“Shut up,” said Llewyn.  “If you’re gonna finger me, go on and do it.”

Arthur sat up again and tugged on Llewyn’s shoulder.

“Get up on the pillows again,” he said, “on your side.”  Llewyn did it, and Arthur pushed his uppermost leg up to his chest.  Llewyn held it drawn up like that, and Arthur dripped the lube on him.

“Motherfucker,” said Llewyn.  “That’s _cold_.”

“It’ll warm up.”  Arthur leaned over him and put a hand on his ass, then started rubbing the lube on him with a fingertip.  Arthur dropped his lips down to Llewyn’s ear and whispered, “I use it to jack off, and sometimes I finger myself.”  He paused.  “Didn’t really think you were coming back, but I waited for you anyway.”

He pushed the tip of his finger into Llewyn, and the smaller man groaned, “Fuck!”

Arthur stopped.  “Does that hurt?”

“Nunh unh.”  Llewyn closed his eyes and mumbled into the pillowcase, “Feels weird.  But good.  Don’t stop.”  Arthur slid the finger in all the way.  It burned a little but didn’t really hurt, and Llewyn liked it.  He drew his leg up as far as he could, and Arthur started thrusting his finger in and out.

“You do this to yourself?” Llewyn muttered.

“Sometimes,” said Arthur.  He was still leaning over Llewyn, and he kissed Llewyn’s face, open-mouthed over his temple and down his cheek along the top edge of his beard.  He kept kissing as he pulled his finger out, and Llewyn opened his mouth to complain, but then Arthur pushed two fingers in, all the way.  Llewyn grunted and clamped down on them before he consciously made himself relax.

“Shit, warn me next time,” he grumbled.

“Sorry,” said Arthur.  He slid them in and out slowly.

“What do you think about when you fuck yourself?” Llewyn asked.  He rocked his ass back a little to take Arthur’s fingers in deeper, and Arthur made a noise low in his throat.

“I think about you fucking me,” whispered Arthur.  He spread his fingers slightly inside Llewyn, then twisted them.  Llewyn groaned.

“Fuck, Arthur.  Gimme another one.”

“You like it, don’t you?”  Arthur gave Llewyn’s earlobe a nip.

“Give me another one,” said Llewyn.

Arthur pulled his fingers out, teased Llewyn with the tips of three pressed close together, then worked them in slowly.  Llewyn’s cock twitched.

“Fuck yeah.  Arthur, God, fuck.”  Arthur got them all the way in, and Llewyn hissed, “I thought about fucking you while I was jacking my cock.”  Arthur crooked his fingers forward and found Llewyn’s prostate, and Llewyn groaned again.  “Arthur, _fuck_.”

“Llew,” Arthur whispered, “baby, you’re so tight.”

“Fuck me,” groaned Llewyn.

“Like this?”  Arthur fingerbanged him, and it was good, but now Llewyn wanted more than that.

“Fuck me with your cock,” he said.  Arthur spread his fingers a little, and Llewyn growled, “Put it in me.”

Arthur reminded him, “You said not to.  You said it’s too big.”  He twisted his fingers deep inside Llewyn.

Llewyn gasped, “Put it in me, damn you, _fuck me!_ ”

Arthur pulled his hand back, slipping his fingers out, then shifted to press the head of his cock against Llewyn’s ass.  When Llewyn didn’t protest, Arthur thrust it all in, slowly.  Llewyn drew in his breath with a hiss at the stretching and burning sensation, and he tensed around what felt like a steel rod inside him.  Arthur kept still, leaning over him and watching him.

“Okay?” he asked after a few seconds.

“Yeah.  Your cock feels fucking huge,” Llewyn said.  He looked back up at Arthur and whispered, “Okay.  Fuck me.”

Arthur fucked him hard, and Llewyn watched his face, how Arthur grimaced like it hurt and parted his full lips to gasp when he started to come after about ten minutes of thrusting, shifting to find a better angle, and thrusting again.  When he was fucking, Arthur looked a little bit like he did when he was singing.

Llewyn liked it—it felt good in a lewd kind of way he never would have expected he’d enjoy—but he didn’t come just from getting fucked.  When Arthur climaxed, he drove in deep and held there; Llewyn couldn’t feel the cum inside him, but he knew what was happening from the way Arthur shuddered and the noises he made.  Then Arthur wrapped his hand around Llewyn’s cock, his own still buried in the smaller man, and he caught Llewyn’s mouth in a kiss as he pumped him.  Llewyn came within seconds.

Arthur pulled out slowly, and Llewyn actually missed having him inside.  He held Arthur’s head down and kissed him again.  Then he did feel Arthur’s cum.

“Fuck,” Llewyn muttered at having to get up.

_I don’t kiss,_ he thought in the bathroom after he’d cleaned up and was leaning on the sink, looking into the mirror on the small medicine cabinet above it.  _And I don’t let guys fuck me.  I don’t fall in love._

“I don’t wear shirts like this,” he muttered.  He was still wearing Arthur’s shirt, but he didn’t want to take it off.  It was too cold in the house.

He went back to bed and told Arthur, “You come too damn much,” without really looking at him.  He added, “I’m going to sleep,” as he huddled under the covers with his back to the other man.  Arthur didn’t say anything, and Llewyn fell asleep within minutes.

When Llewyn woke up the next morning, Arthur was holding him.  He was behind Llewyn, his legs drawn up so it was like Llewyn was sitting on his lap while they were lying down.  Llewyn could feel Arthur’s cock against his ass, not really hard but not fully soft either.  Arthur’s arm was draped over Llewyn’s chest, hand turned up so that his palm cradled Llewyn’s cheek.  Arthur’s breath shifted the hair on the back of Llewyn’s neck.  From the even quality of the larger man’s breathing, Llewyn guessed he was still asleep.

Llewyn turned slowly in Arthur’s arms and looked at his still face: large nose; chapped lips; pale, blemished skin; black eyelashes.  Llewyn had to decide if he was leaving or not, and looking at Arthur didn’t make it any easier.

Finally, Llewyn extracted himself from the other man’s lanky grasp.  He got up and found his shorts and put them back on; then he went out into the hall.  He was hungry, but when he rifled through the kitchen, he didn’t find much to eat.

He rifled through the living room too and looked for any signs that Arthur was seeing someone else, or that he had lied about not fucking anyone else while Llewyn was gone.  He didn’t find anything.

Llewyn went into the little guest room where he had been supposed to sleep and looked at the bed where they’d fucked the first time, now made up with hospital corners.  The closet and dresser in the guest room were empty.

Then Llewyn went into the third bedroom.  Arthur’s record player was in there on its stand, and one wall was covered in tall shelves filled with albums.  Llewyn’s lips drew up in an unconscious smile.  He started looking at them, looking for anything a woman might like, or anything anyone besides Arthur might like.  Llewyn found his own album on a high shelf, just barely within reach of his fingertips.  Llewyn grasped it and tugged it down, and the unconscious smile turned ironic.  He looked at his photo on the cover, then opened it.  A piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground.  Llewyn bent to pick it up and winced; his ass still hurt a little from Arthur fucking him.

The piece of paper turned out to be the letter he’d written when he wrote Al, Arthur, back from overseas.  Llewyn reread it, even the last sentence: “Soon as I get back, I’m coming for you.”

Llewyn stuck the letter back inside the album’s cover and stretched to shove it back up on its shelf.  In the living room, he found Arthur’s car keys on the end table, and he decided to take the car to the store for food.  Then he remembered he didn’t have any pants.

“Fuck,” he muttered to the empty room.  “Should’ve started the dryer.”

He went back to the bedroom and found some slacks of Arthur’s hanging in the closet.  Arthur was still asleep, and Llewyn watched him as he stepped into the pants and pulled them up.  They stayed up around his waist all right, but the cuffs puddled on the carpet around his feet, and Llewyn tripped over them on his way back to the living room.

“Fuck,” he said again.  He sat down on the couch and rolled the cuffs up and put on his shoes without any socks.  He left Arthur a note, and he didn’t think again about starting the dryer until he was already in the car and pulling out of the neighborhood towards a little grocery store he’d noticed on the way in the night before.

He had plenty of cash at the moment, so he bought stuff for pancakes, and bread and milk and peanut butter, and cigarettes since Arthur didn’t have any; apparently, he hadn’t ever started smoking again.  Arthur had liquor, but Llewyn couldn’t remember if he’d seen any coffee, so he bought some.  When he got back, though, Arthur had started coffee, and the dryer.  Llewyn made him pancakes, ate most of them himself, and left the kitchen for Arthur to clean up.

When his clothes were dry, Llewyn told Arthur he wasn’t staying, but by now he didn’t mean it.  He put his clothes away in the guest room when Arthur told him to, then sat down with his guitar.  Arthur listened while he cleaned up the kitchen, and when he was finished, he sat on the other end of the sofa and watched Llewyn play.

Llewyn had thought up new songs while he was gone in the Merchant Marines, and he picked one of them out on the guitar.

“Then I know I’m lying, then I know I’m out the door,” he half-sang, half-breathed as he plucked the strings.  “Then I know that I’m really fucked, then I know that I’m gone.”

Arthur interrupted him with, “That’s terrible.”  Llewyn glanced at him but didn’t stop playing or singing.

“What you do, I love you too, and I know—”  His fingers stumbled.  “Shit,” Llewyn hissed; then he tried again.  “And I know I’m what you want.  What I do, I love you too, and you’re all that I want.”

“Keep practicing,” said Arthur.  Llewyn flicked his eyes up again.  Arthur was looking away, down at his own knees in the old jeans he’d put on.  Llewyn was still wearing Arthur’s clothes, the too-big pants and the ugly shirt.  Arthur turned his head toward Llewyn, looked at the shirt, then looked at Llewyn’s face.  When he saw Llewyn watching him back, he got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Llewyn smiled, looked back down at the guitar, and kept practicing.

\--

To be continued


	6. Chapter 6

**February, 1962**

“I thought you’d call first,” Arthur said when he opened the door late one Friday night and found Llewyn Davis standing there, looking up at him with utter exhaustion in his remarkable eyes.  It was a lie, because Arthur hadn’t thought he’d ever see Llewyn again, guitar or no guitar.

“I didn’t want to call until I knew I could find this place.”  Llewyn had a couple bags slung over his right shoulder, so he lifted his left hand to indicate Arthur’s ranch-style house.  The gesture expressed contempt for the entire lot, from the house’s white paint down to the small but neatly trimmed lawn.  “This is the sticks, Al.”

“Well, you found it.  I wasn’t expecting you.”  Arthur stepped back to let Llewyn in.  Llewyn dropped the bags by the door, just inside the living room, and looked around.

“Do you still have my guitar?” he asked.

“Of course.  I told you I did.”  Arthur went to retrieve the guitar case, which he had stored in one of the two small spare bedrooms.  He kept his record player in there, and some shelves.  One of the albums on the shelves was Llewyn’s.  Arthur lugged the guitar case into the living room and set it down a few yards from Llewyn’s feet.  “There,” he said.

He stepped back and watched as Llewyn shuffled forward and knelt, snapped the case open, ran his small hands over the instrument inside.  At first, Arthur resented the implication that Llewyn had to check over the guitar to make sure it was still in one piece, but then he saw something else on Llewyn’s scruffy, pretty face.  Llewyn really had looked forward to seeing his guitar again.

Llewyn crouched back on his haunches, lifted the guitar, and cradled it, fingers running down the strings.  Arthur thought he might start playing it right then and there.  Instead, Llewyn leaned forward again and placed the instrument back into its case, like he was returning a lost baby bird to its nest.  Llewyn closed up the case and stood; then he raised his eyes back to Arthur’s.

“Thanks, Al,” he said.

“It’s Arthur,” said Arthur.  Llewyn’s dark eyebrows lifted, and Arthur muttered, “I decided not to get it changed.”  He hadn’t told Llewyn about that when he wrote, or about the office job he’d taken, or about selling his own guitar.  He hadn’t even told him about the royalties, although Llewyn might have guessed they were how Arthur could suddenly afford the house and the new car in the garage.

Llewyn hadn’t written back for several weeks, but then he had: a short note, surprisingly articulate, grateful and polite until the last few sentences.  Those were choppy and scrawled at the bottom of the page: “I want out already—hate this shit, all of it, and I can’t get off.  Wish I had you under me right now, I’d fuck your brains out.  Soon as I get back, I’m coming for you.  -Llew”

Arthur had stuck the note inside the cover of Llewyn’s album, then jerked off until he came, groaning Llewyn’s name.  He didn’t write back because he couldn’t think of what to say.  Arthur had sent his new telephone number along with his address, but Llewyn never called, and he didn’t write again.  That had been five months ago.

“Okay,” said Llewyn, “Arthur.  I’m still Llewyn.”

“Okay,” said Arthur, “Llew.”

“Fuck you,” said Llewyn, and Arthur went into the adjoining kitchen for a glass of water.  Llewyn stayed where he was.

“Do you need a place to sleep?” Arthur asked over his shoulder.

“That’s not why I came by,” Llewyn replied.  “I came for my guitar.”

“I know.”  Arthur kept the sigh out of his voice.  He’d known Llewyn lied when he said he wanted to see Arthur again.  He’d known Llewyn hadn’t stopped by to fuck him.  _He didn’t come for me,_ Arthur thought, and cringed at the double entendre.

“That’s a new couch, isn’t it?” Llewyn asked.  Arthur turned back to him and walked to the edge of the kitchen area with his glass.

“Yeah.  And you ain’t being very subtle.”  Llewyn shot him a glare, and Arthur went on, “But if you shower first, I’ll let you sleep in an actual bed.  I have a guest room now.  My old bed’s in there.”

“You’ve sold out, Al,” said Llewyn.

“Royalties,” said Arthur.  “And I have a job.”

“You’ve sold out,” Llewyn repeated.  “Do you still play anymore?”  Arthur shook his head.  “Sing?  Write?” Llewyn persisted.  Arthur shook his head again.

“Jesus Christ,” said Llewyn.  “I’m gone a year, and you give up.  You said you weren’t giving up until you made the right choice.”

“Fuck you, Llewyn,” Arthur muttered.  “You gave up first, you and your fresh start.  The only difference is that you have a guitar, and I have a bed.  _Two_ beds, _and_ a couch.”  He went back into the kitchen and set his glass down by the sink.  “Sometimes giving up _is_ the right choice.”

“You sold your guitar?”  Llewyn’s voice conveyed the same arch disgust his hand had, when he gestured at Arthur’s house.

“Yeah.  I sold my guitar.”  Arthur leaned on his hands and looked down into the sink.  He thought about saying, “And I met somebody.”  Llewyn might believe it.

“I met somebody,” said Llewyn.

“Good,” said Arthur, still looking down into the sink.  “That’s great.”  His face felt hot, and his eyeballs ached.  He pushed off of his hands to take up the glass again; then he filled it and drained it, swallowing past the painful lump in his throat.  Llewyn watched him.

“Go take a shower,” Arthur growled when Llewyn kept watching him.  “Bathroom’s right over there.”  He pointed to the smaller of his two baths, off the back of the living room.  “You can do your own laundry, I have a machine.”

He started back for his own bathroom—he’d been downing water even before Llewyn arrived—but the smaller man reached out to grasp his arm when Arthur passed.

“Arthur,” said Llewyn, “it didn’t work out.”

“What didn’t?”  Arthur snatched his arm back.

“The person I met.  And me.”  Llewyn looked up at Arthur and waited as if he expected Arthur to say something.

“Okay,” said Arthur.  “Go take a shower, if you’re staying here tonight.  You’re filthy.”

While Arthur was pissing and washing his hands, he thought about Llewyn in the other bathroom, Llewyn naked and wet and scrubbing soap over his chest.  Arthur undressed and put on his bathrobe and went into the guest room—the small bedroom next to the one with the record player—and looked at the little bed where Llewyn had fucked him twice and kissed him.  Arthur’s new bed, in the master bedroom, was bigger and softer, but Llewyn had never been in it.  Once or twice, Arthur had thought about sleeping in the guest room, but that would have been beyond pathetic.  Worse even than listening to the album he’d kept because it was something that had belonged to Llewyn, while he looked at the picture of Llewyn on the sleeve.

“This where I’m sleeping?” Llewyn asked from behind him.  He was standing in the doorway to the guest room when Arthur turned around.

“I guess,” said Arthur.  Llewyn was wearing shorts and no shirt, and he was in better shape than when Arthur first met him: trimmer and more muscular.  Arthur thought maybe he’d shaped up his beard in the bathroom, but he still needed a haircut; dark curls of hair fell over his ears and around his face.

“You need a haircut,” Arthur told him.  “And a shave.”

“Do you still have that cowboy hat?” Llewyn retorted, and he turned away.  “Where’s the washing machine?”

Arthur showed him and went to sit on the new couch in the living room with another glass of water.  Llewyn came back in after a few minutes and held out his hand for the glass.

“I’m thirsty,” he said.  Arthur gazed up at him, incredulous, then handed him the glass.  Llewyn drank most of what was left with his eyes fixed on Arthur’s before he handed it back.

“Have you eaten?” Arthur asked him.  “I’m sorry, I should have asked.  I eat dinner out most nights, but I probably have something.”

“It’s okay.  I’m not hungry,” Llewyn said.  He was still standing up, looking at the new couch.  “You eat out?  Are you seeing someone?”

“I don’t like to cook,” said Arthur.  “It ain’t worth it, just for me.”

Llewyn sat down on the other end of the couch, a cushion’s worth of space between them.

“You should put on a shirt,” said Arthur.  Llewyn looked down at his chest, and Arthur finished his water.

“Look,” Llewyn said, “do you want me to leave?  I’ll leave.  I know it’s been months since I heard from you, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Arthur decided to start calling Llewyn on his long-suffering, pity-garnering bullshit.

“Make up your mind, either you need to stay or you don’t.  If I tell you I want you to leave, where will you go?” asked Arthur.

Llewyn shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’ll hitch back to the city.  Not _everyone_ there can still be pissed at me.  It’s been a year.”

_Who else have you talked to in that year?_ Arthur asked Llewyn in his head.  _Who else wrote to you?  Who did you call, when you didn’t call me?  Who else did you think about fucking?  Who else kicked you out this evening, before you came all the way out here?_

“For Christ’s sake, Arthur,” Llewyn muttered when the silence had gone on for too long.  He got up, raked a hand through his tangle of hair, and walked over to his guitar case.  He stood there looking down at it, his back to Arthur, and Arthur looked at the knotted muscles in Llewyn’s bare shoulders, and his thighs under the cuffs of his shorts, and his ass.

“I’ll leave, okay, soon as my clothes are dry,” said Llewyn.  “Why didn’t you just hand my guitar out the door?  Why are you so fucking nice about it?”

“About what?” asked Arthur.

“I don’t know.”  Llewyn shrugged again, dark shoulders tensing and relaxing.  He’d gotten really tan, wherever it was they’d sent him.  “About us.  About it not working out.”

“What?”  Arthur set his glass down on the carpet beside the couch, so he wouldn’t throw it.  Sometimes, nice guy or not, he was tempted to throw things when he got angry.

“There wasn’t any ‘us,’” said Arthur.  He stood up and flexed his arms at his sides.  “There wasn’t even any _‘it_ ’ to work out.  I did you a favor.  I did you _several_ favors, and you left.  You didn’t call.  You met somebody.”

“I met _you_ ,” said Llewyn, looking down still, like he was talking to his guitar, “and it didn’t work out.  I didn’t call— _you_ didn’t call.  You didn’t write back.  But you’re _too fucking nice_.  Just tell me to fuck off.”

Llewyn shivered, and Arthur groaned, “For the love of God, why don’t you ever wear any clothes?”  He stalked back to his bedroom to find a shirt, long-sleeved with buttons.  Western looking.  Llewyn would hate it.

Arthur took the shirt back to the living room.  Llewyn hadn’t moved.  Arthur got in front of him, reached around him to drape the open shirt over his shoulders, grasped one wrist to direct Llewyn’s arm into the sleeve.  Llewyn shoved his arm through, until his small hand emerged from the unbuttoned cuff, then shrugged into the other sleeve.  Arthur started buttoning up the shirt.  It was something to do.

“Al,” said Llewyn, “this is the ugliest fucking shirt I have ever seen.”  It was too big on him, and when he put his arms down, the cuffs hung nearly to his fingers, and the bottom hem almost covered his shorts.

“Fuck you, Llew,” said Arthur.  He left the top couple buttons undone, and he could see Llewyn’s clavicles and some of the hair on his chest.  Arthur asked, “What are you going to do now?”

“Wait for my clothes to dry,” said Llewyn, “and leave.”

“No.  I mean, now that you’re back.”  Arthur still had his hands on Llewyn’s chest, fingers loosely grasping the shirt placket.  “Are you going back to performing?  Or shipping out again, or getting another job, or what?”

“I don’t know,” said Llewyn.  He looked down at Arthur’s hands on his chest, then up at Arthur’s eyes.  “I thought. . . I don’t know.”

“Don’t leave,” Arthur said.  He spread his fingers out, some over the fabric of his shirt and some over Llewyn’s bare skin between the open collars.  “Where did you go first?  Before you came here.”

“What?  I didn’t.  I came here first.”  Llewyn scowled.  “I told you, I didn’t call because I didn’t know how long it would take me to get here, or if I could get a ride.  I had to walk the last couple miles.  You live in a lovely little neighborhood in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“It’s the suburbs,” said Arthur.

“It took me this long to get here,” said Llewyn.  “I didn’t go anywhere else first.”  His eyes shifted to Arthur’s mouth and back up again.  “So if you kick me out, I still have other options.”

“I’m not kicking you out.  You said when you came back, you were gonna fuck me.”

Llewyn’s eyebrows lifted.  “You want me to fuck you?  You got a funny way of showing it”

“No, I want to fuck _you_.”  Arthur slid his hands to Llewyn’s sides, down them, then back around to his ass, squeezing it through Arthur’s shirt and Llewyn’s shorts.  “I was thinking about it.  I want to fuck you.”

“No, you’re not fucking me.  I don’t let guys fuck me.”  There was a hitch in Llewyn’s breathing, and he leaned in to Arthur’s chest as the larger man groped him.  “You were sitting there thinking about fucking me.”

“Not just now.  I meant, I was thinking about it in general.  While you were gone.”  Once Arthur began to give in, it was all a tumble downhill into debauchery, debauchery and vulnerability and Llewyn.  Arthur pulled the smaller man against him and bent his head and murmured into his ear, “I thought about you.”

“You’re _not_ nice.  You’re an asshole,” Llewyn growled into the rough fabric of Arthur’s robe.  He gripped Arthur’s waist in both hands.  “You let me think you didn’t want me here.  So I’m leaving, you hear me?  I’m leaving you.”  He tilted his head up and put his mouth to Arthur’s neck and mumbled against his skin, “I thought about you too.  I thought about how you taste.”  He opened his mouth and dragged it over Arthur’s neck, his teeth and his tongue both; then he bit Arthur just under his ear, lightly.  “I thought about how tight your ass felt when I fucked you.”

Arthur was getting hard, and he rubbed against Llewyn.

“You’re not putting that thing up my ass,” Llewyn told him.  “You’re too big.”

“No, I’m not,” said Arthur.  “It doesn’t have to hurt.  You’re a virgin, aren’t you?  When it comes to that.”

“That turns you on, doesn’t it?” muttered Llewyn.  “Thinking about being the first guy to fuck my ass.”

“I want to be your first for something,” said Arthur.  He bent his head over Llewyn’s shoulder and nuzzled his hair aside to kiss the back of his neck.

“You were.  First guy I kissed.  _Only_ guy I’ve kissed.”  Llewyn was sort of squirming against him; then he pulled back and grabbed a handful of hair on the back of Arthur’s head.  Arthur looked down at him.

“Really?”

“Yeah.  I don’t kiss.”  Llewyn rocked up on his toes and kissed him, pulling on Arthur’s hair.  Llewyn’s mouth was warm, and he tasted like cigarettes.  Arthur kissed him anyway.

“Llew,” he whispered when Llewyn dropped back on his heels.  Arthur leaned forward to follow his mouth and kissed him again.  When he squeezed Llewyn’s ass, the smaller man groaned into his mouth and thrust up against him.

“Come to bed with me,” Arthur said.

“My clothes,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll have to put them in the dryer.”  He kissed Arthur again.  “And when they’re dry, I’m leaving.”  He shoved his hands into Arthur’s robe and pushed it off.  It caught around Arthur’s waist where he’d tied it, and Llewyn yanked at the tie until it fell off.

“Don’t leave,” said Arthur.  He started for the master bedroom, stumbled over his robe on the floor, and tugged Llewyn along with him.  “Stay.  I want you to stay.”

“You sure?” asked Llewyn.  He was following Arthur, pulling off his shorts, stepping out of them when he got them down.

“I’m sure.”  Arthur backed into his bedroom, up to the bed.  “Stay with me, Llewyn.”

“Okay,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll stay.  But you’re not fucking me.”

\--

Arthur fucked Llewyn on his side, slowly at first, with one of Llewyn’s legs drawn up to his chest.  He’d taken his time getting Llewyn ready, fingering him until Llewyn was moaning and begging for it.

“Put it in me,” he groaned.

“You said not to,” said Arthur.  “You said it’s too big.”  He twisted his fingers, and Llewyn gasped.

“Put it in me, damn you, _fuck me_!” he demanded, so Arthur did.  Llewyn hissed and tensed up, and Arthur waited until he relaxed.

“Okay?” he asked, leaning over Llewyn, braced on his elbows.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “Your cock feels fucking huge.”  He turned his head to look up at Arthur, eyes looking all pupil in the dim moonlight coming in at the window.  “Okay.  Fuck me.”

Arthur came before Llewyn did, but he stayed in Llewyn and got him off with his hand right after.  He kissed Llewyn as he pumped him in his fist, and Llewyn groaned into Arthur’s mouth when he came.  After he pulled out, Llewyn kissed him again then swore under his breath, got out of bed, and went into the bathroom.

When he got back into bed, he muttered, “You come too damn much,” curled up into a ball with his back to Arthur, and said he was going to sleep.  During the night, Arthur got up to piss, and after he lay back down, he put his arms around the sleeping Llewyn and held him, legs tucked up under him and cheek on his hair.

The next morning, Arthur woke up alone.  Llewyn wasn’t anywhere in the house, and Arthur thought he’d gone.  Then Arthur noticed Llewyn’s guitar case in the living room and the note on the coffee table: “I’m taking your car and going to the store.  You don’t have shit to eat.  Back soon.”

Arthur started the coffee and put Llewyn’s clothes in the dryer.  Llewyn got back and made pancakes.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Arthur said.

“You think you have me all figured out,” Llewyn muttered.  “You don’t.  I’ll surprise you.”

“You do,” said Arthur.  “Surprise me, I mean.  Sometimes.”

Llewyn left splatters of pancake batter all over the counter and stove for Arthur to clean up, along with the dirty dishes.  While Arthur was at the sink, Llewyn carried in his dry clothes in a crumpled bundle, leaving a trail of dropped socks behind him.  Llewyn dumped his laundry on the floor by his guitar case and bags.

When Llewyn started shoving his clothes into one of the bags, Arthur said, “You can use the guest room.  The closet’s empty.”

“I’m not staying,” said Llewyn.

“Dammit, Llew, don’t start that again.”  Arthur threw the dishtowel at him.  Llewyn balled it up and threw it back.  It landed in the sink and sank down into the dirty water.

“ _Dammit_ , Llewyn,” said Arthur.  He got a dry towel and told Llewyn, “Go put your fucking clothes away.”  When Arthur finished the dishes, he followed the trail of socks back to the guest room, scooping them up and dumping them in the drawer where Llewyn had put two t-shirts and some shorts.  Llewyn was standing in the other room, looking at Arthur’s records.

“You have one of these?” Llewyn asked.  He pulled his album out halfway.

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  Llewyn pushed the album back onto the shelf.

“Maybe I should sell the guitar,” Llewyn said.  “I thought about starting up again, playing some places, but probably nobody wants me.  It’s been too long.”

“I thought that was selling out,” said Arthur.  “Giving up.”

“Sometimes giving up is the right choice,” said Llewyn.  He looked up at Arthur.  “Think you could get me a job?  Where you work?”

“Probably not,” said Arthur.  “It’s an office.  You’d hate it.  You’d pull your passive-aggressive shit and piss off the wrong people and get fired, then they’d blame me for bringing you in.”

“But you, you’re good at faking it, aren’t you?”  Llewyn pulled out the album again, all the way, and looked at his own picture on the back.  Arthur hoped he wouldn’t open it.  He wouldn’t be able to explain why he’d kept Llewyn’s letter.

“You’re good at faking it,” Llewyn repeated, “and lying.  Why do you even have a job?  You get royalties, don’t you?  You could have kept writing music.  You could have made more albums.”

“I like the security of having a job,” said Arthur.  “Didn’t you, this last year?”

“No,” said Llewyn.  He put the album away again.  “But maybe I should get another one.  Or maybe I should go back in.”

“You said you were bored,” Arthur reminded him, “and that you couldn’t get off.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “Yeah.”

“Don’t go back in,” said Arthur.  “I’ll get you a job if that’s what you want.  And if you promise to try not to fuck it up.”

“I don’t know what I want,” said Llewyn, “and I’ll probably fuck things up no matter what.  But I’ll try not to, if you can get me the job.”

“Do you trust me?  Since I’m a liar and a fake, maybe you shouldn’t,” Arthur said.

“And a sellout,” added Llewyn.  “You forgot that.”  Llewyn went past him, to the door, then stopped and turned back to Arthur.  “I trust you, Arthur.  But I don’t know why you’re so nice to me.”

Arthur had fallen in love with Llewyn, exactly as he had known he would if he let Llewyn hang around.  He said, “I don’t know why either.”

\--

Llewyn played his guitar most of the afternoon, working out songs he’d thought up on the ship.  Arthur finished cleaning up the kitchen and listened to Llewyn sing: “Then I know I’m lying, then I know I’m out the door. . . then I know that I’m really fucked, then I know that I’m gone. . . .”

“That’s terrible,” said Arthur.  Llewyn flicked his eyes up to Arthur’s, then looked away and kept going.

“What you do, I love you too, and I know—shit.”  A discordant slip of his fingers over the strings, and he started again.  “And I know I’m what you want.  What I do, I love you too, and you’re all that I want. . . .”

“Keep practicing,” said Arthur.

They went out for dinner in the city, and Arthur paid since Llewyn had bought the groceries and cooked breakfast.  Afterwards, they went to Pappi’s, and Llewyn got drunk.  He was loud and belligerent and Pappi told Arthur to get him out.  Once Arthur dragged him outside, Llewyn shoved Arthur up against the wall and called him a sellout again.

“Go fuck yourself, Llew,” Arthur said, and he shoved Llewyn back.

“You’re not even living!” Llewyn slurred in a shout.  “Your whole life is a lie, all of it!  Who are you, Al?  You’re a fucking fake, you sold out.”  He turned and yelled up to the night sky, “ _I’m fucking a sellout!_ ”

By the time Arthur got him home, Llewyn was barely conscious.  Arthur left him passed out on the guest room bed, sat down on the couch with a bottle of gin, and got drunk too before he went to bed in his own room.  In the middle of the night, Llewyn came stumbling in and got in bed with Arthur, still drunk.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.  He lay on top of Arthur, rubbing against him.  He was hard.

“Sorry for what?”  Arthur was still drunk too.

“I dunno.  Don’t remember what I said.  But I’m sorry.”  Llewyn tried to kiss him, and Arthur turned his head.

“C’mon, baby, I said I was sorry,” Llewyn said.  “Kiss me.  And fuck me.  I want you to fuck me again.”

“Go fuck yourself, Llew,” Arthur mumbled; then he kissed Llewyn; then he fucked him.  They both woke up with headaches late the next morning.

“Fuck,” muttered Arthur.  “I’m late for church.”

“Church?  You go to _church_?” Llewyn asked.  He was lying in an L shape with his top half across the pillows, legs stretched out at a right angle to them, and Arthur’s head on his chest.

“Yeah,” said Arthur.

“You get trashed and fuck men and then go to church the next morning?”

“Go to hell, Llew,” said Arthur.

“You’re the one who’s missing church,” said Llewyn.

\--

Arthur got Llewyn a job in the office, and Llewyn kept it for nearly three weeks.  When he got himself fired, no one blamed Arthur for bringing him in.  He was a nice guy doing a favor for his asshole friend.  Llewyn sulked all evening, declaring that he was leaving because he wasn’t any good to anyone, until Arthur told him to go if he was going and went to bed.  Llewyn came to bed ten minutes later and fucked him, but he did it slowly and he made sure Arthur came.  Afterwards, Arthur held him, and they kissed, and instead of fucking, Arthur thought of it as making love.  The next night, Llewyn started playing at Pappi’s again.

\--

**July, 1962**

Some five months later, Llewyn was still playing at Pappi’s a couple nights a week.  On weeknights, he borrowed Arthur’s car and went alone, but when Arthur didn’t have work the next day, he drove Llewyn into the city and sat at a table in the back and watched him play.

It was Friday night again.  The light that was focused on Llewyn shone in his hair and made his eyes glitter if he lifted his head enough.  But mostly, he kept his head bent down towards his guitar, or he looked out into the dead air between himself and the audience.  Once, he raised his eyes to where Arthur sat, although Arthur wasn’t sure Llewyn could see him.  Even though Llewyn hadn’t ever shaved off the beard, Arthur thought he looked beautiful.  Some of his tan had faded, but he was still darker than Arthur, and he’d kept in shape.  Arthur thought about how, out of all the people watching Llewyn sing, only he got to touch Llewyn’s small, tight body and kiss his mouth and see the look on his face when he came.  Two or three nights a week, Llewyn sang to anyone who’d listen, but when he practiced or composed or just felt like singing, he sang only to Arthur.

After he finished his set, Llewyn sat at the table with Arthur, and when Pappi passed by with his money, Llewyn counted out half of it and handed it to Arthur.

“You don’t have to do that,” said Arthur.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “I didn’t give you anything this month.”

“You don’t have to,” Arthur repeated as he shoved the bills in his pocket.  “You buy most of the food, and you cook.  You leave your shit all over our house, but you cook.  That’s something.”

“It’s not our house,” said Llewyn.  “It’s your house.”  He was looking toward the front of the room, where someone else had started singing, and they were arguing now in muted whispers.

“You live there too,” said Arthur, and the couple seated in front of them turned to shush them.

“Fucking hell,” said Llewyn.  “Let’s go.”  He got up, and Arthur followed him out.

“I don’t live there,” Llewyn continued as they walked to Arthur’s car.  “I’m staying there.  One day you’re going to get tired of it and kick me out.  So it’s not our house.”

“I’m not going to kick you out.  I like you being there.”

Llewyn didn’t say anything else until they got to the car; then as they were getting in, he asked, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you like me being in your house?  You’re always bitching about me leaving my shit everywhere.  What’s there to like about that?”

Arthur put both hands on the steering wheel, at ten and two, although he hadn’t started the car.  He looked out of the windshield at the street.

“I like your cooking,” he said.

“Hire a cook,” suggested Llewyn.  “Or get a wife.  Get married.”

“And I like you being there when I get home from work,” said Arthur.  “I like the sex.  You’re a good lay.”

“You could still get married,” said Llewyn.

“I like hearing you play.  Even on the nights when you can’t sleep and it keeps me up and I have to work the next day.”

“Get a wife,” said Llewyn, “who can play the guitar.”

“Do you want to leave?”  Arthur started the car, looked over his shoulder out the back, and pulled out into the street.  “If _you’re_ tired of it, say so.”  He kept talking, so Llewyn wouldn’t have a chance to say that he was.  “You didn’t sign up for fucking the same person—fucking a man, even—for six months.  But you come home every night.  I guess you could be fucking someone else during the day, one of the neighbors or something.  Or when you come into town without me.  You don’t have to keep it a secret.  If you’re fucking someone else, you can tell me.  I get it.  You didn’t sign up for—”

“Jesus Christ, Al, I’m not fucking anyone else,” said Llewyn.  They were out of the city now, on the darker road leading home.  “I don’t want to leave.  I like it, I like living with you.  But you’re going to get tired of me.  Everyone does.”  He looked out the window.  He still did the long-suffering, pity-garnering bullshit thing, but Arthur had gotten used to it, like he’d gotten used to Llewyn calling him “Al” when he was pissed off.

“I’m not going to get tired of you, Llew,” said Arthur.  He turned off the main road onto one of the smaller streets crisscrossing their neighborhood.  “I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Llewyn.  He was still looking out the window.

Arthur pulled into the garage and turned off the car.  He looked over at Llewyn, at the line of his jaw and the lashes Arthur could see in the glow of the car’s headlights, even though Llewyn’s face was still turned away.  They had never said “I love you” before.

“I can’t marry you,” Arthur said.  “But I can call you my wife.  We can get you an apron to wear when you cook.  Probably find a housedress to fit you, too.”

“Fuck off,” said Llewyn.  He finally shifted away from the window and looked at Arthur.  “It’s still your house.  Legally.”

“I can try to get your name put on the lease.”

“I don’t care about the fucking house, Arthur,” Llewyn said.  He leaned over to kiss Arthur, hands on the larger man’s shoulders.  Arthur put his arms around Llewyn and kissed him back; then he held Llewyn to his chest and muttered into his hair, “It’ll work out, Llew.  We’ll make it work out.”

They went inside and made love.  Afterwards, Arthur was nearly asleep when Llewyn asked, “Do you like cats?”  Arthur opened his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “but I’m allergic to them.  Why?  Do you want a cat?”

“Maybe,” Llewyn said.  He had his head on Arthur’s shoulder and a hand on his thigh.  “But not if you’re allergic.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you can’t help it.  . . . Shit, you shoulda told me, last year.  I brought that cat in your apartment,” Llewyn muttered.

“It’s okay,” said Arthur.  “But yeah, I’m allergic.  And a cat’d get hair everywhere too, all over the house.  And all over your clothes, since you leave _them_ all over the house.”

“I’ll pick them up tomorrow,” Llewyn said.

“No,” said Arthur, “you won’t.  Do you really want a cat?  If you do, we can get a cat.”

“No.  I don’t really want a cat.”  Llewyn squeezed Arthur’s thigh.  “Go to sleep.”

“Do you really love me?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “I really love you.”

“I really love you too,” said Arthur, and he went to sleep.  When he woke up the next morning, he was alone in bed.  He lay still for a moment, until he realized he could smell pancakes cooking in the kitchen.  Arthur got up and went to the bathroom, then went into the kitchen.

“Good morning, wife,” he said.

“Fuck you, Al,” said Llewyn.  “About time you got up.  Your pancakes are about to burn.”

\--

To be continued


	7. Chapter 7

**January, 1963**

When Llewyn’s father died, Llewyn didn’t know about it until Arthur read the obituary in the newspaper.  Llewyn was sitting on one end of the couch picking at his guitar, and Arthur was on the other end, reading.

“Didn’t you say your father’s name was Hugh Davis?” Arthur asked, not looking up from the paper.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  He waited.  When Arthur didn’t say anything else, Llewyn stopped playing and asked, “Why?”

“This isn’t him,” said Arthur.

“What isn’t him?”  Arthur didn’t answer, and Llewyn leaned over and grabbed for the paper.  Arthur held it away from him, until Llewyn laid his guitar on the floor and turned to glare at him.

“Obituary,” Arthur finally said.  “But it’s not him.  It doesn’t mention you.”

“Let me see,” said Llewyn.  Arthur took his time folding the paper, first bending back the right hand page, then creasing the page he’d been reading into fourths.  When finally he handed the paper to Llewyn, Llewyn snatched it and looked at the obituary Arthur had folded the paper around.

“This is him,” said Llewyn after he’d read a few lines.

“But it doesn’t mention you,” Arthur repeated.  “The only survivors—”

“My sister,” said Llewyn.  “And her family.  My nephew.”  He could feel Arthur’s eyes on him, and he kept looking at the paper.

“Oh,” Arthur said after a moment.  “I’m sorry, Llew.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”  Llewyn handed the paper back, bent to pick up his guitar, and sat holding it in his lap.  He didn’t start playing it again.

“It says the funeral’s tomorrow,” Arthur told him.  “Graveside service.”

“I know.  I read the same thing you did.”

Arthur didn’t rise to the bait; instead, he asked, “Are you going?”

“I don’t know,” said Llewyn.

“I’ll go with you,” Arthur offered, “if you want me to.”

“You’d have to take off work.”  Llewyn strummed his fingers over the guitar strings, then stopped.

“I can take off work.  I haven’t missed a day of work in over a year.”  Arthur looked down at the newspaper in his hand, then set it aside on the arm of the couch.  “If you don’t want me to come with you, I won’t.  I’ll do whatever you want to do.”

“I’m not going,” said Llewyn.  “I don’t think.”

“Llewyn.”  Arthur’s deep voice sounded soft.  “If you don’t, you might regret it later.  Not being there to see him.”

“I went to see him in the home,” Llewyn said, “a couple months ago.  One Saturday when I borrowed your car.  I regret _going_.  I won’t regret _not_ going.”

“Yes, you will,” said Arthur.  “Llew, I know you.  You’ll regret it.  I’ll go with you.  We’ll do it together.”

“She won’t want me there,” Llewyn told him.  “My sister.  You don’t have a sister, do you?  You wouldn’t know how it is.”

“I don’t have a sister, but I have a cousin,” Arthur said.  “That’s sort of the same.”

“No, that’s not the same at all.”  Llewyn glared at him.  He didn’t like it when Arthur claimed to understand him, even though Arthur usually did.

“Everyone loves her,” Arthur went on.  “She’s perfect.  I’ve always been the black sheep.”

“I guess it _is_ the same,” said Llewyn.  “But I shouldn’t go.  I don’t even feel anything.  He was dead a long time ago, mentally—and even before that, he never. . . we didn’t—I’m the black sheep.  Like you said.”

“If you don’t feel anything, you won’t mind going.”

“Fuck you,” muttered Llewyn.  “That wasn’t what I meant.  You’d have to take off work, and if you didn’t, I wouldn’t have any way to get there since you’d have the car.”

Arthur leaned over and put his hand over Llewyn’s, resting on the guitar.  Arthur’s hand was large and pale, and Llewyn’s was small and tan.  Llewyn looked at their hands as Arthur curled his long fingers under and squeezed.  Sometimes Llewyn thought that Arthur really fucked up quitting the guitar; his fingers had been made for playing it.  Sometimes Llewyn thought that Arthur’s fingers had been made for playing him, too.  They understood Llewyn’s body the way Arthur understood how Llewyn’s mind worked.

“Llewyn,” Arthur said, “I’m going with you.  It’s in the morning, and I’ll go to work in the afternoon unless you need me to stay home.  We don’t have to talk to your sister—we’ll just go for the service and leave.”

“You never even met him,” said Llewyn.  “Why should you want to go?”

“For you,” said Arthur.  “Funerals aren’t for the dead.”  He kissed Llewyn’s temple then let his hand go.  Arthur got up and went back to the bedroom to get ready for bed.  When Arthur was gone, Llewyn set down his guitar, picked up the newspaper, and read the obituary again.  He stayed up past midnight, and Arthur was asleep when Llewyn came into the bedroom.  Llewyn undressed and brushed his teeth and got into bed.  Arthur didn’t wake up, even when Llewyn thrashed around for a few seconds.  Llewyn sighed and lay on his back.  He didn’t sleep for a long time.

\--

The next morning, on the way to the cemetery, Arthur asked, “How are you going to introduce me, if anyone asks who I am?”

“You mean am I going to introduce you as Al or as Arthur?”  Llewyn shrugged.  “I thought we weren’t going to talk to anyone.”

“I mean, how are you going to explain why I’m there with you?”  Arthur glanced at him, but Llewyn was looking out the window.  “If someone corners you and asks.”

“I don’t know,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll think of something.”

“I need to know what I am,” Arthur said.  “Your friend?  Roommate?”

“I don’t _know_.”  Llewyn turned to glare at him then stared out the windshield.  “It doesn’t matter.  It won’t be anyone there but a bunch of old men.  All the ones who worked with my father.  We could tell them anything, and they won’t remember it five minutes later.”

“Well, you can’t tell them the _truth,_ ” Arthur retorted.  “You can’t tell your sister the truth.”

“You said we weren’t going to talk to her.”  Llewyn put his arm up on the door, against the window, and drummed his fingers on the glass.  “I’d _like_ to tell them.  Then the next time someone asked me, ‘Are you Hugh Davis’s boy?’ they’d say, ‘Are you Hugh Davis’s boy, the one who fucks men?’”  He sighed.  “Dad would have been—I don’t know _what_ Dad would have said.  Before.  The last couple of years, he wouldn’t have cared.  He didn’t know me from Adam.”

“What would your sister say?” Arthur asked in a low voice.  “If she knew.  If you told her.”

Llewyn shrugged.  “It doesn’t matter.  I haven’t talked to her in—it’s been almost two years.”  He finally looked at Arthur again, but Arthur kept his eyes on the road.  “Does _your_ family know?  Have you told your cousin?”

“I don’t talk to my family anymore,” said Arthur.  “After the thing with the car.  My mother’s car.”

“Oh.”  They hadn’t ever spoken about the car.  Not before Llewyn left for a year in the Merchant Marines, not after he got back, not in the year since he’d been living with Arthur.  Llewyn turned his head back to the window and said, “I’m sorry about the car.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”  Arthur turned into the cemetery.  There was only one funeral tent erected, and strings of cars were parked along the narrow paved roads that laced the cemetery, cars stretching out from the tent at all angles.

“Fuck,” said Llewyn.  “He knew a lot of old men.”

Arthur parked at the end of one string.  They got out and started to walk toward the tent.

“What are you going to tell them about me?” Arthur asked again.  “I don’t care.  They don’t know me.  But I need to know so I don’t contradict your story.”

“I don’t have a story,” said Llewyn.  “And it doesn’t matter.  We’re not going to talk to anyone.”

The funeral had already started, and they stood at the back, at the edge of a sea of old men and their old wives, and far more young people than Llewyn had expected.  Children of the old men, maybe, men and some women his own age and older and younger.  None of them had visited his father in the home, as far as Llewyn was aware.  But then he probably wouldn’t have known if they had.  They would have sent their condolences to his sister, and some must have sent the dozen overblown floral arrangements skirting the coffin.  None of them looked back to see Llewyn there.

The coffin lay at the eye of the hurricane of people, and Llewyn supposed his sister was there beside it.  He couldn’t see her or the minister, but he could hear the minister’s voice speaking Bible verses and platitudes.  Llewyn tuned out the words and looked up at Arthur, beside him.  Arthur was wearing a black suit and a tie; he was dressed a little nicer than Llewyn was.  But then Arthur went to church, so he had nicer suits.  He’d combed his black hair back from his face and trimmed his goatee, and he looked handsome.  Sometimes Arthur looked ridiculous and awkward, but sometimes looking at him made Llewyn’s breath catch in his throat.

The service wasn’t long, and soon Llewyn realized the minister was winding down.

“Let us pray,” he said, and as soon as the heads in front of him bowed, Llewyn started to slip away.  But of course, Arthur bowed his head too, and at the same time, he kept his eyes open to look sideways at Llewyn.  His hand shot out and clamped down over Llewyn’s wrist and didn’t let up until the minister said, “Amen.”

Before they could get away, one of the old men in front of them had turned around and recognized Llewyn, and they were trapped.  Llewyn might have walked away anyway, had he been alone, but Arthur was too nice to do that.  **_He’s_** _the wife in this relationship,_ Llewyn thought, _making me be polite._   His father’s friends and coworkers were polite too, asking how Llewyn was before they launched into the real reason they spoke to him: to talk about Hugh Davis, or more accurately, to talk about themselves in the context of Hugh Davis.  Llewyn found himself thinking of them the way Arthur probably did: _They’re old, and everyone around them has heard their stories a thousand times.  They want to tell them one more time, to someone who doesn’t already know._   Arthur’s presence made Llewyn patient.

None of them asked who Arthur was.  They didn’t care.  He was someone who hadn’t heard the stories, and that was all.  But they held Llewyn and Arthur up, until Joy noticed them.  She had been standing by the minister and the coffin and the flowers, her son Danny sullen beside her in a miniature suit of his own, but when she spotted Llewyn, she left Danny with the minister and hurried over.

“Llewyn!” she said as soon as she was close enough.  She sounded surprised, but not angry.  “I didn’t think you would come.”

“I guess not,” said Llewyn.  He wasn’t angry either, not at her, but he was a little angry at Arthur, who had said they wouldn’t talk to anyone.

“I tried to get in touch with you,” Joy said, “but no one knew where you were.  I wasn’t even sure you were out of the Merchant Marines.”

“It’s okay,” said Llewyn.  “You couldn’t have known.  Anyway, I saw it in the paper.”  He almost said, “I’m sorry,” Arthur’s rote politeness rubbing off on him again, as if it were only her loss and not his.  _But it **is** her loss,_ he thought, _not mine.  I lost him a long time ago.  He lost **himself** a long time ago._

The silence between them was awkward and too long.  Neither of them wanted to discuss the obituary and Llewyn’s absence from it.

Llewyn’s sister looked up at Arthur and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Arthur.

“This is my sister, Joy,” Llewyn said to him.  Then to Joy, he said, “This is Arthur, my friend.  I live with him.”

“Oh.  He’s staying with you?” she asked Arthur.

“He lives with me,” Arthur said.

“I’ve been there for nearly a year,” Llewyn added.

“Oh.”  Joy looked back at Llewyn, surprised.  “You’ve been back for a year already?  I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know you knew I shipped out,” said Llewyn.

“I just assumed,” she said.  “Because you disappeared, and you’d said you were going back in.  When you didn’t come around, and your friends didn’t know where you were, I assumed.”

“You threw me out,” Llewyn reminded her.  “I didn’t think you cared where I was going.”

“Llew,” muttered Arthur, wife-like, conveying in the single syllable the injunction, _Don’t make a scene, dear._

“Sorry,” Llewyn said to his sister.  “We need to go.  Arthur has to get back to work, and he’s my ride.”

“All right,” Joy said.  “You should come by some time.”

“All right,” Llewyn said.  “I will.”  They were all being so polite.

“You said we wouldn’t talk to her,” Llewyn accused when he and Arthur were back in the car.  They were waiting for their turn to inch out of their parking spot, into the strings of cars driven by the old men who had come to the funeral.

“ _You_ stayed and talked to her,” said Arthur.

“We could have gotten away if you hadn’t started praying,” Llewyn retorted.

“You can’t just walk off during a prayer,” said Arthur.  “It’s sacrilegious.  But you stayed after that.”

“I was being polite,” said Llewyn.

When they got home, Llewyn sat down on the couch.  Arthur washed his hands and filled a glass with water.  He drank it all, refilled it, and took it to Llewyn.  Llewyn shook his head, and Arthur sat down with the glass at the other end of the couch.

“Aren’t you going to work?” Llewyn asked him.  “It’s not even noon.”

“I thought you might want me to stick around,” Arthur told him.  “I thought you might want to talk.”

“About what?” scoffed Llewyn.  “There’s nothing to talk about.  It’s over.  Go to work.”  Arthur sighed and took a drink from his glass.  Llewyn looked over at him.  Arthur had a hurt look in his dark eyes, a look Llewyn rarely saw anymore.

“You look really nice,” Llewyn said.  Arthur glanced at him.

“So do you,” he said.

“Not really.”  Llewyn smiled, although it was more of a grimace than a smile, and looked down at his clothes.  “I should get a new suit.  A nice one.”

“What for?  You never go anywhere to dress up,” said Arthur.  “You gonna start going to church with me?”

“No,” said Llewyn.  “I don’t know.  You’d like it if I did, wouldn’t you?”  Arthur shrugged, then nodded.  “It would be ironic though,” Llewyn continued, “you bringing your homosexual lover to church.  _You_ couldn’t tell _them_ who I am.  They’d throw you out.  For sinning.”

“Everyone sins,” said Arthur.  “And I wouldn’t tell them you’re my homosexual lover.  I’d tell them you’re my wife.”

“Fuck you, Arthur,” said Llewyn; then he sighed too.  “Maybe I _will_ start going to church with you.  I don’t do anything else while you’re gone on Sunday mornings.  I just sleep.”

“I’d like that,” said Arthur, “you going with me.”  He finished his water.  “Do you want me to stay home with you today?”

“No, I don’t.  There’s no reason for you to miss a whole day of work because of me.”

“There’s every reason, Llewyn, if you need me.”  Arthur set down his glass, moved to the middle cushion of the couch, and angled his lanky body to face Llewyn.

“I don’t—” Llewyn began.  “I don’t—fuck.”  He looked away and closed his eyes.

“Llew,” said Arthur.  “Baby.”

“Shut up,” Llewyn growled, his eyes still closed.  _One day,_ he thought, _he’s going to leave me.  I’m going to be an asshole to him one time too many, and he’s going to leave me._   Arthur didn’t move.

“I don’t feel anything,” Llewyn said aloud, clenching his teeth between the words.  “He was already gone, a long time ago.  And even when he was himself, he was disappointed in me.  I went to see him because I felt obligated to.  Not because—not because I felt—”

Llewyn dropped his head, covered his face with both hands, and sobbed.

Arthur didn’t hold him, but Llewyn didn’t want to be held.  Arthur sat there beside him, not touching him, and waited.  Llewyn cried for about a minute, then stopped without trying to.  He shuddered, like he did sometimes after he came.  Arthur pulled out the handkerchief he had in the breast pocket of his suit and handed it to Llewyn.

Llewyn wiped his eyes and nose and balled up the handkerchief into his fist.  He looked down at the floor then turned his head to look at Arthur.  Arthur stroked a curl of hair back from Llewyn’s forehead with his long fingers.

“I love you,” said Llewyn.

\--

“I love you too,” said Arthur.

Llewyn dropped the handkerchief on the floor and felt around in his own jacket for his notebook.  Arthur looked at the handkerchief and sighed.

“You’re a fucking slob, Llew,” he said.

Llewyn ignored him and reached for the telephone sitting on the end table beside the couch.  He hauled the phone into his lap, picked up the receiver, and dialed the number he’d found.  Arthur sat back and watched him.

“Joy.  It’s me.  Llewyn,” Llewyn said into the phone.  “I need to tell you something.”  Arthur could hear Joy’s voice come from the receiver, but he couldn’t understand what she said.

“It’s about Arthur,” Llewyn said.  “He’s not just my friend.  He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Arthur breathed.  Llewyn’s sister said something else.

“‘What does that mean?’” Llewyn repeated in a sarcastic tone.  “It _means_ we’re lovers.  We sleep together.  We fuck each other.”

The voice in the receiver sounded disgusted.  Angry.

“ _No_ , I’m not a homosexual.  It’s called _bi_ sexual,” Llewyn retorted.  “It means— _yes_ , there’s a difference.  Men and women both.  Except now, I’m just with Arthur.  I love him.”

Llewyn’s sister started yelling, and he winced and held the receiver a bit away from his ear.  Then the phone went dead, and Llewyn set the receiver back on the phone and put the phone back on the table.

“She hung up on me,” he observed.

“You. . . you didn’t have to tell her,” murmured Arthur.

“Yeah, I did.”  Llewyn looked down at the dropped handkerchief; then he turned his body to face Arthur.  Llewyn’s beautiful, mahogany-brown eyes were still red around the edges from crying.

“I treat you like shit, Arthur,” Llewyn said, “and I’m sorry.  I have to make it up to you.”

“You don’t treat me like shit, Llew,” Arthur told him.  “You’re an asshole, but I knew that going in.  You don’t have to make anything up to me.”

“But I had to tell her,” Llewyn insisted, “because I’m not going to lie about you.”  He leaned back into the right angle where the back of the couch met its arm.  “She said not to come visit—I wasn’t going to.  And she said to keep away from Danny.  My nephew.”

Arthur said, “I’m sorry.”

“She didn’t want me seeing him anyway,” Llewyn said, “because I swear too much.  I hadn’t seen him in two years before today.”

“Llewyn,” Arthur murmured, “thank you.  For being honest about me.  And _to_ me.”  He was thinking about what Llewyn had told him soon after he’d moved in with Arthur, that Llewyn had a child somewhere, maybe in Akron.  At first, Arthur had felt sick inside when he thought about it, but he pretended it didn’t bother him because Llewyn had stopped lying to him, mostly, at least about the important things.  Eventually, Arthur came to realize that although Llewyn sometimes got quiet and thoughtful over it, he wasn’t thinking about the child’s mother.

Llewyn nodded.  “Stay home,” he said.

“Okay,” said Arthur.  Now he reached out an arm to Llewyn, and Llewyn leaned into him instead of the couch.  Arthur wrapped both arms around the smaller man and held him.  He kissed Llewyn’s forehead, just below his hairline.  Llewyn’s skin tasted salty.

“Arthur,” Llewyn muttered.  He kissed the side of Arthur’s neck, first with his lips closed, then open-mouthed.  “You look good in that suit, but I want to rip it off you.”

“Don’t,” Arthur groaned.  He tilted his head back.  “It was—was expensive.  I’ll take it off.”  Llewyn made a sort of growling noise as he bit at Arthur’s neck.

“I want you to stay home,” he said, “and distract me.  I don’t want to think.”

“Good,” said Arthur.  He pushed Llewyn off of him so he could start removing his suit jacket.  “You’re dangerous when you’re thinking.”  Before he could get the jacket all the way off, Llewyn’s hands were at his neck, loosening his tie.  Arthur batted his hands away.  “Take your own suit off.  You’re just slowing me down.”

\--

It was Friday, and Llewyn was supposed to play at Pappi’s that night.  Arthur told him they could stay home if Llewyn wanted to, but Llewyn said they needed the money.  They didn’t, but Arthur didn’t argue with him.  Performing might do Llewyn some good.

Arthur drove them into the city.  He regretted it when they got to Pappi’s, and Jean and Jim were there.  They hadn’t been around in a while, since before Llewyn came back, since Jim made it.  Arthur didn’t resent his success; Arthur wouldn’t have his royalties if not for Jim.  But he resented them showing up at Pappi’s.  Llewyn went up to play, and Arthur sat at his usual table in the back, and Jim came over to sit with him.  Everyone kept looking back at them instead of watching Llewyn play.

Jean was visibly pregnant.  She sat on Jim’s other side and listened as Jim talked to Arthur, after Llewyn had finished his set.  Llewyn had gone over to the bar, and Arthur watched him as Jim talked.

“We heard Llewyn was back and playing here again,” Jim told Arthur.  “We’ve been meaning to get over here for a while and see him.  Didn’t know you and Llewyn were still in touch though.”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.

“How is he?” Jim asked.  He looked over at the bar too, at Llewyn leaning on one elbow and talking to Pappi.

“He’s better,” said Arthur.  “He’s doing good.”

“Where’s he staying?” asked Jim.

“He lives with me,” said Arthur.  “We live together.”

“Oh,” said Jim.  “That’s good.  You’re a nice guy, Arthur.  You’re probably good for him.”

“I hope so,” said Arthur.

Llewyn came back to the table with two drinks.  He handed one to Arthur and sat down on his other side.  Jim leaned back to say something to Llewyn, behind Arthur, but then Pappi motioned to Jim from the bar.

“Excuse me,” Jim said, and he got up.  When he was gone, Jean looked at Arthur and Llewyn.

“Congratulations,” Llewyn told her.

“Yeah,” she said, cautiously.

“Whose is it?” Arthur asked.  “Jim’s, I’m guessing, since you kept it.”  Llewyn had told Arthur about Jean when he told him about the child in Akron.  Jean stared at Arthur; then her eyes narrowed and flicked over to Llewyn.

“Llewyn, you asshole,” she said.  “What did you tell him?”

“I’m sorry,” said Llewyn.  He looked away from her and drank from his glass.  Jean didn’t try to get anything else out of him; instead, she turned to Arthur.

“You used to be so nice,” Jean told him.  “You’re spending too much time around Llewyn.  Why are you letting him stay with you, anyway?”

“He’s not staying with me,” said Arthur.  “He lives with me.”

“That was a bad choice,” she said.  “You’ll regret it.”  Llewyn looked past Arthur at her, but he didn’t say anything.

“It’s been a year,” muttered Arthur.  “I haven’t started regretting it yet.”

“You will,” said Jean, ominously.

“No, I _won’t_.”  Arthur was starting to get angry.  “Lay off Llew, okay?  I’m sorry for what I said.  It was my fault, not his.  You can’t blame him for everything.”

“‘Llew’?” Jean asked.  “He lets you call him Llew?”

Arthur didn’t want to talk to her anymore.  Instead, he faced forward to glare at the table in front of him and lifted his glass to take a swallow of his drink.  It was mixed stronger than he usually liked, and he grimaced as he tasted it.  When he set his glass down again, he didn’t let it go.  It was cold and hard and wet where condensation formed and dripped down onto his fingers.  After a minute, Llewyn put his hand over Arthur’s and stroked the back of Arthur’s long fingers with one of his short ones.  Arthur turned to look at him, and Llewyn smiled.  When Arthur glanced back at Jean, she was staring at their clasped hands.

“Finish your drink,” Llewyn muttered.  “I got my money already.  I want to get out of here.”

“You don’t want to get drunk?”  Arthur was teasing him, but he was also a little surprised.

“Not here,” said Llewyn.  “We can get drunk at home.”

“I didn’t say _I_ wanted to get drunk.”

Llewyn leaned up to whisper to him, “I like it when you’re drunk.  You get kinky when you’re drunk.”

“Fuck,” said Arthur, and he hurried to finish his drink.

They left before Jim got back to the table.  Jean had gotten up to join him and Pappi when Llewyn started whispering, so they weren’t obligated to say goodbye to her.

On the way home, Llewyn said Arthur, “I wonder what Pappi was talking to Jim about—Jim didn’t look happy.”

“Maybe Jean told him what I said to her.”  Arthur frowned at the dark road ahead of the car.  “I shouldn’t have said that.  I was angry.”

“You were jealous,” said Llewyn.

“No, I wasn’t.  I was angry that she and Jim can just. . . show up and act like nothing’s changed.  Even though they’ve been too good for the rest of us since Jim cut that solo album.  You used to call _me_ a sellout.  What about Jim?”

“You were jealous,” Llewyn repeated.

“I’m not jealous of Jim,” Arthur muttered.

“I know you’re not,” said Llewyn.  “You’re jealous of Jean, because I fucked her that one time.”  Arthur’s hands clenched over the steering wheel, and Llewyn sighed.  “She’s right, I shouldn’t have told you about that.”

“I am not jealous over you,” said Arthur.  “Anyway, we’re home.”  He pulled into the garage and got out of the car and went into the house without waiting for Llewyn.  He didn’t feel like getting drunk anymore, and he wondered why he’d told Jean that not everything could be blamed on Llewyn.

Llewyn followed him inside and went to the kitchen, where he found the gin and drank straight from the bottle.  He held it out to Arthur, but Arthur shook his head.

“I’m going to bed,” he said, and he started for the little hallway leading to the bedroom.

“Dammit, what’s the matter with you?” Llewyn groaned.  “Are you mad that I said you were jealous?  Because you _were_ jealous.”  Arthur had stopped in the doorway with his back to Llewyn, and he leaned in it, bracing his hands on the sides.

“I don’t like thinking about you with her,” Arthur finally said.

“Then don’t think about it!  I was with her _once_ , and I regretted it.  She made _sure_ I regretted it.”  Arthur heard Llewyn’s shoes brush the carpet as he came closer, even heard the sound of Llewyn’s mouth on the bottle as he drank again.

“I’ve never regretted being with you,” Llewyn said in a small, low voice after a moment.  “Even when you piss me off.”  He drank again then swore softly, “Fuck, this was a bad idea.  I should’ve stayed home.  I’m all fucked up after this morning.”  Arthur heard the scuffle of his feet as his turned away, back to the kitchen, then the clink of him setting the bottle down.

Arthur thought about that morning, about Llewyn standing at the edge of his father’s funeral with Arthur beside him, about Llewyn covering his face with his small hands so Arthur couldn’t see how he looked when he cried, about Llewyn calling his sister and telling her Arthur was his lover.

“I’m sorry, Llew,” Arthur said.  He turned and went over to where Llewyn was standing in the kitchen, looking at the bottle.  Arthur put his arms around the smaller man, and for a moment Llewyn was stiff and resistant, but then he relaxed against Arthur’s chest and held him around his waist.

“I’m sorry I got jealous,” Arthur told him as he put his lips to Llewyn’s dark hair.  “I shouldn’t have made things worse for you today.”

“Make it up to me.”  Llewyn reached past him for the bottle.  “Drink up and come to bed and let me fuck you.”  When Arthur took the bottle and drank, Llewyn looked up at him.  He was smiling.  “Wear that damn cowboy hat of yours, and ride me.”

“That’s your idea of kinky?” Arthur asked.

“It’s yours, actually,” said Llewyn.  “You suggested it the last time you got drunk, but we were already in bed, and you were too messed up to think where you’d put the hat.  You don’t remember saying it?”

Arthur shrugged.  “No.  But the hat’s in the top of my closet.”

Llewyn lay on his back in bed with Arthur straddling him, and Arthur leaned back between the smaller man’s spread thighs as Llewyn grasped his hips and thrust up into him.  Llewyn knew just how he liked it and where, and he made Arthur come without touching him.  Arthur stayed on him after but rocked forward and held himself up on trembling arms as Llewyn finished inside him.  Llewyn groaned and shuddered, then pulled Arthur down and kissed him.

“You can lose the hat now,” he muttered into Arthur’s mouth.  Arthur took it off and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.  Neither of them was really drunk, but Arthur liked it better that way.  He liked being able to remember Llewyn’s hands trailing up and down his spine, and Llewyn’s mouth pressing lazy caresses to his neck, and even Llewyn’s beard scratching against his throat.

When Llewyn quit working on his neck and laid his head back on the pillow, Arthur rolled off him and lay on his back too, beside Llewyn without touching him.

“Am I ever going to meet your family?” Llewyn asked.  “You met mine.  What was left of it.”  He was quiet a few seconds, then added, “I guess I don’t have a family anymore.”

“I told you, I don’t talk to them.  I don’t have a family anymore either.”  Arthur closed his eyes and added, “Except for you.”

Llewyn didn’t say anything.  Arthur dozed off, maybe for just a minute or maybe longer, until Llewyn woke him up by draping himself over Arthur and laying his head on his chest.

“Hold me,” Llewyn muttered.  Arthur put his arms around Llewyn’s bare back and stroked the curls on the nape of his neck with one hand.

“Thank you for going to the funeral with me,” Llewyn said.  “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“I always will,” Arthur told him.  “You know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” said Llewyn.  He was quiet another minute; then he mumbled against Arthur’s chest, “I love you, Arthur.  I wish I could do more for you than that.”

“Llewyn,” said Arthur, “you’re here, and you love me, and I love you.  That’s everything I need.”

\--

To be continued


	8. Chapter 8

**Summer, 1963**

Llewyn was in a bad mood when Arthur got home from work, but at least he’d cooked dinner.  Arthur hadn’t had such a great day himself, and he ate methodically until, eventually, he realized Llewyn had expected some kind of compliment on the meal.

“You’ve never made meatloaf before,” Arthur observed.  “You’re getting adventurous.”

“Fuck you,” said Llewyn.  Arthur looked at him in mild surprise, and Llewyn muttered, “Really, that’s all you can say?  ‘Adventurous’?  I was elbows-deep in bloody hamburger and ketchup all afternoon.”

“Jesus,” said Arthur.  “That’s disgusting.  It kind of ruins it.”

“Make your own fucking dinner then, Al,” said Llewyn, and he left the table.  Arthur finished eating and cleared off the table.  Llewyn was in the kitchen, sulking, when Arthur started on the dishes.

“Really, it was good,” Arthur said.  “Just don’t tell me what’s in it next time.”

“Go to hell,” said Llewyn.  He started to leave the kitchen, then paused and looked back over his shoulder.  “And take out the trash on your way there.  I’ve been asking you to do it all week.”

“Fine,” sighed Arthur.  He finished the dishes and took out the trash.  When he came back in, Llewyn was on the couch, strumming his guitar.  They ignored each other, and Arthur went to their bathroom to take a shower.  Llewyn was still messing with the guitar when Arthur got finished and returned to the living room to sit on the other end of the couch.

“Are you ever going to get a new bathrobe?” Llewyn said, neither looking at Arthur nor stopping his playing.  “You’ve been wearing that thing since the first time we fucked.”

“Didn’t stop you from fucking me,” said Arthur.

“It might yet,” said Llewyn.

“Look, I’m sorry about the—the meatloaf,” Arthur groaned.  “Why are you so pissed off today?  You didn’t even _ask_ how my day was.”

“You didn’t ask about mine either!  You’re fucking oblivious.  And boring.  What would you say if I _did_ ask?” Llewyn demanded, then answered himself.  “That you did the same shit you do every day at work.  That’s what you’d say.”

“Yeah?  And what did _you_ do?” Arthur challenged.  “Fucking played the guitar and—and slept and jacked off, probably.  I know you didn’t _clean_ anything.  Or take out the trash even though you were here all day.”

“I made a fucking meatloaf!”  Llewyn was nearly shouting at that point.  “And I _didn’t_ jack off, because I was going to let you fuck me tonight, but you know what?  I’m going to go jack off _right now_ because you aren’t getting anywhere near my ass!”

“You go do that, because I’m not at all interested in your ass,” Arthur said.  It was the first time he’d lied to Llewyn in quite a while, and he continued to be interested in Llewyn’s ass as Llewyn got up and stalked off to the guest room, guitar and all.  Llewyn was wearing tight jeans that day, and Arthur watched him go regretfully.  All day, Arthur had looked forward to coming home to Llewyn, and only when Llewyn vacated the room did Arthur realize he never actually _told_ Llewyn that.  In fact, he looked forward to coming home to Llewyn _every_ day, and he hadn’t told Llewyn so in quite a while.

_We’re turning into my parents,_ Arthur thought, _bitching at each other, and me taking him for granted, and him bored with me._

He got up and went to the guest room.  Llewyn had shut the door, like he usually did when he got mad at Arthur and went in there to brood.  Arthur could hear discordant guitar harmonies coming from within the room.  Usually, Arthur just left Llewyn alone when he got like that, but now he knocked on the door, gently.

“Llew?”

Llewyn didn’t answer.  Arthur knocked again then tried the knob.  The door was locked.

“Llewyn!  Open up, baby.  I’m sorry, okay?” he called.  He rattled the knob.

“You can’t come in,” Llewyn yelled through the door.

“Oh come on, I said I was sorry!”  Arthur leaned his forehead on the door.  “Llew.  Look, I’m sorry I’m boring.  And I’ll buy a new bathrobe.  Okay?”  He turned his head to rest his cheek against the door and closed his eyes.  “I thought about you all day.  I want to see you.”

At first, all was quiet from within; even the guitar had stopped.  Then Llewyn called, “Go away.  I’m busy.”

Arthur gave up and went back to the living room.  He watched TV for a while without really seeing it, and he thought about Llewyn.  He knew Llewyn would get over it, but probably not until the next day, and Arthur would be back at work then.  Arthur sighed, tilted his head back against the couch, and thought about having to sleep alone that night.  His bed, whose size had once seemed luxurious to Arthur, always felt too empty when Llewyn slept in the guest room.

Arthur was considering going on to bed anyway, to make the time until Llewyn forgave him pass more quickly, when he heard a swishing sound from the hallway.  The hall opened off the same wall that the couch sat on, so even when Arthur turned his head, he couldn’t see the source of the sound.

“Llew?” he asked.  He sounded more hopeful than he’d meant to.

“Yeah.”  Llewyn stayed in the hall, where Arthur couldn’t see him.  “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, Arthur.”

“What, you’re going to the kitchen and you won’t even let me look at you?” Arthur groaned.

“Just close your fucking eyes.”

“ _Fine._ ”  Arthur closed them.

“Are they closed?”

“ _Yes_ , they’re closed.”

Arthur heard the swishing sound again, moving toward him; then it stopped.

“Okay.”  Llewyn’s voice sounded small and uncertain.  “You can look.”

Arthur opened his eyes.  Llewyn was standing a couple yards away from him, wearing a dress.  It was sleeveless and blue, with a white floral pattern, and the full skirt came to just below Llewyn’s knees.  Llewyn was wearing stockings under the dress, with white heels.

“Holy shit,” said Arthur.  At first, he didn’t even notice that Llewyn had shaved; he was too busy staring at Llewyn’s body.  Finally, though, he lifted his eyes back to Llewyn’s beardless face.

“Fuck,” said Arthur, “you shaved.  You. . . are you wearing lipstick?”

“A little,” muttered Llewyn.  Arthur had never seen him blush before, but he was blushing now.  “And of course I shaved.  I would look ridiculous in this with a beard.  It’ll grow back.”

“Oh my God,” said Arthur.  “Oh fuck, Llew.”

Llewyn shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wobbling a bit on the heels.

“Well?” he demanded.  “It took me forever to get into this thing.  And to get the damn stockings on.  Fucking garter belt and clips and—”

“Oh shit, you’re wearing a garter belt?  Llew, what the _fuck_?”  Llewyn glared at him, and Arthur added, “I. . . I mean. . . what gave you the idea to. . . to. . . Christ, Llew, I’m gonna come just looking at you.”

Llewyn grinned abruptly.  “So you like it.”

“Hell yes I like it.  Get over here.”

Llewyn tottered over to him and bent down to kiss him when Arthur reached for him.  Arthur groaned and tried to drag Llewyn down into his lap, but the smaller man pulled away far too soon and stood just out of reach.

“I was saving this for your birthday,” Llewyn said, smoothing his skirt down with both hands.  “But after what you said, that you thought about me all day. . . I decided I should make up with you by putting it on early.”

“But—but what. . . how did you come up with. . . .”  Arthur trailed off as Llewyn gave his hips an experimental shake and the skirt rustled.

“You joked about putting me in a dress once,” said Llewyn, “but I saw the look on your face when you said it.”  He moved a step closer, skirt swishing, but when Arthur reached for him again, Llewyn sank to his knees and avoided his grasp.  Llewyn put his hands up on Arthur’s chest and pushed open his robe.

“You still need a new bathrobe,” Llewyn said.  He ran his fingertips over Arthur’s nipples, and Arthur shivered as they stiffened.  “Maybe I’ll get you that for your birthday since you’re getting me in a dress now.”

“You can get me you in a dress again then, too,” Arthur suggested.  He gasped when Llewyn pinched his nipples, hard.  “Fuck, Llew.”

“Maybe,” said Llewyn.  He spread Arthur’s robe open at his waist, then past his thighs.  Arthur was hard, throbbing.  Llewyn leaned forward between his legs and licked him.

“Shit,” breathed Arthur.

Llewyn started going down on him, slowly, the way Arthur liked it.  Arthur stared, watching Llewyn’s lips glossing his shaft with pale pink lipstick.  Llewyn wasn’t wearing eye makeup, but he didn’t need it.  His lashes were long and black enough as it was, and when he looked up at Arthur through them, Arthur fell in love with him all over again.

“Llew,” Arthur whispered.  He brushed Llewyn’s dark hair back from his temple, then laced his fingers through Llewyn’s curls and tugged, coaxing Llewyn’s head downward.  Llewyn closed his eyes and dropped his head lower.  He worked Arthur with his tongue until Arthur was about to come, then pulled off.

“Dammit,” Arthur hissed.  He rocked his hips up, trying to catch Llewyn’s mouth, now mostly devoid of lipstick.

“I owe you more than a blow job,” said Llewyn.  “I’ve been very mean to you.”

“No, it was my fault,” Arthur said.  “I’ve been taking you for granted and—”

“Shut up, Arthur,” said Llewyn.  “I’ve been bad.  Very bad.”

“Because you didn’t let me come?” asked Arthur.  Llewyn laughed, softly.  He looked beautiful.

“Because I said you were boring.”  He leaned forward and licked Arthur again.  “And because I didn’t ask about your day.  You go to work all day and come home, and I don’t even ask about your day.”  Llewyn looked up at him again, through his eyelashes.  “I’m a terrible wife.”

“You’re not,” Arthur said.  “You’re a wonderful wife.”

“Arthur,” said Llewyn, “I’m very bad, and you should punish me.”

“Punish. . . ?” Arthur began.  “Oh.   _Oh._ ”  He put both hands in Llewyn’s hair, bent down, and kissed him.  “How. . . how do you think you should be punished?”

“I think,” Llewyn whispered into his mouth, “you should spank me.”

“Oh God, Llew,” said Arthur.  He kissed Llewyn harder and deeper, then rubbed his pale cheek against the tan, smooth one now fully exposed for the first time since they’d met.

“Your skin’s so soft,” Arthur murmured as he began to caress Llewyn’s face.  “You’re so beautiful, Llewyn, you’re so damn beautiful.”

“Arthur,” said Llewyn.  His eyes closed, and he tilted his head back a little, and when Arthur finally drew his head back, the black lashes at the corners of Llewyn’s eyes looked wet.  “Not now, okay?  Tell me later.  Right now, you’ve got a job to do.”

“Okay,” said Arthur.  “I’ll tell you later.”  He put his hands under Llewyn’s arms—Llewyn hadn’t shaved there—and hauled the smaller man up to his feet.

“Bend over,” said Arthur, “across my lap.  I’m going to spank you, hard.  Because—”  He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the floral fabric just above the belt across Llewyn’s flat stomach.  “—you’ve been such a bad girl.”

“You’d better remind me what I did,” Llewyn said, “so I’ll know not to do it again.”  He pushed Arthur’s shoulders back and lay on the couch over the larger man’s lap.  Llewyn kept the heels on, and Arthur ran a hand up one stockinged leg, from the back of Llewyn’s ankle all the way to the top of the stocking.  Llewyn hadn’t shaved his legs either.  He never would have passed for a woman, and Arthur liked that.

He squeezed the back of Llewyn’s thigh, his hand reaching up under the blue skirt.  Llewyn squirmed a little, and his thighs parted, one up near Arthur’s right hip and the other on his knee.  Arthur began to list the ways Llewyn had been bad.

“You didn’t ask how my day was, and you said I was boring,” Arthur told him, “because I spent all day at the office working to make money for us.”  He squeezed the thigh under his hand a little harder, then slid his hand over and squeezed the other one.  “And you. . . insulted my taste in bathrobes.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Llewyn.  “I’m sure that robe was very nice when it was new.  I said you need to replace—”  He broke off with a gasp when Arthur smacked his thigh.

“Don’t interrupt,” Arthur said.  He felt Llewyn’s erection twitch against his leg.  Arthur continued, “You threatened to withhold sex until I got a new bathrobe.”  He had to struggle not to start laughing; everything that had irritated him less than an hour before seemed silly now.  Maybe that was the point.  Arthur slid his hand between Llewyn’s thighs and pushed it upward, until his arm was elbow-deep in the skirt.  His fingers brushed satin between Llewyn’s legs.  Llewyn whimpered.

“You made me take out the trash,” Arthur continued, “when you could have done it all day while you were here and I was at work.”  He pushed his fingers under Llewyn, between his erection and Arthur’s thigh.  Llewyn was so hard, he felt like steel under the satin fabric, and he groaned when Arthur’s hand slid under him.

“You didn’t clean while I was gone either.  You could have done some of the laundry, but you always leave it for me to do on the weekends.  And right now. . . .”  Arthur could feel a slick, damp spot beneath his fingertips, at the tip of Llewyn’s erection.  “Right now you’re making _more_ laundry for me to do by getting your—your panties wet.”  He could hardly say it, but not because it sounded silly.  Llewyn twitched again, and the damp spot spread.

“Then,” Arthur said, “you went and locked yourself in the guest room, and you wouldn’t let me—wouldn’t let your husband in.”  He pulled his hand out from under Llewyn and slid it up over the smaller man’s ass instead.  “Your husband who’d been away from you all day, missing you and wanting to be with you.”

“Arthur,” Llewyn whispered.  “Please.”

“Please what?” asked Arthur.

“Forgive me.”  It wasn’t what Arthur expected.

“Llew,” he murmured.

He heard Llewyn swallow, then say, “And then punish me.  Punish me like I deserve.”

“First say you’re sorry,” Arthur told him, “and that you won’t do it again.  Then I’ll punish you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Llewyn.  “Very, very sorry.  And I won’t ever do it again, I promise.”  He was probably lying, but Arthur didn’t mind.

“All right,” Arthur said, “I forgive you.  But I still have to punish you.”  He groped Llewyn’s ass under his dress.  “For your own good.”

Arthur shoved the dress up around Llewyn’s hips.  Under it, Llewyn was wearing white panties that went up to his waist, and a matching garter belt clipped to his stockings.  It had lace around the bottom.

“Oh fuck, Llew,” Arthur breathed.  He ran his fingers along the garter belt’s straps, stretching down Llewyn’s hips.  Llewyn arched his back and thrust his ass up, and Arthur spanked him.

Clearly unprepared, Llewyn yelped, but Arthur probably startled himself more than he did Llewyn.  He hadn’t even consciously thought about doing it; he just _did_ it. And it felt good, satisfying even: the way Llewyn’s muscular ass felt under his hand, the smacking sound, and Llewyn’s reaction.  Arthur spanked him again.

“Ow, _fuck_ ,” Llewyn groaned.  “That _hurt_.”

“It’s supposed to hurt,” said Arthur.  “You should be grateful I’m leaving your panties on.”  He did it again, and Llewyn moaned.  Arthur did it harder.

“Oh God, Arthur, fuck.”  Llewyn bucked his hips forward, grinding his erection into Arthur’s thigh.  “That fucking hurts, it feels so good.”

“You look so hot like this, wearing this,” Arthur told him.  He smacked Llewyn’s ass again, hard.  “And you love it, don’t you?  You love being my wife.”

Llewyn groaned again and said, “Yes, God yes.”  Arthur kept spanking him, and Llewyn writhed on his lap.  “I love it!”

Arthur rubbed himself against the front of Llewyn’s garter belt.  The lace felt rough, and it almost hurt, but Arthur couldn’t stop, any more than Llewyn could stop thrusting against his thigh.

“I’m gonna come,” Llewyn hissed.  Arthur quit spanking him and slid an arm under his waist to break Llewyn’s contact with his thigh.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Llewyn growled.

“I’ll make you come,” said Arthur, “but not by spanking you.  Sit up, baby.”  He pulled Llewyn up into his arms, against his chest.  Llewyn winced when he turned over to sit in Arthur’s lap; then he kissed Arthur’s neck and sucked on it, just below his jaw.

Arthur tilted his head back and groaned, “You said you owed me, so I want to fuck you.  I want to fuck my pretty little wife.”  Llewyn’s dress was still hiked up around his waist, and Arthur began rubbing his cock through his panties.

“Not here,” Llewyn whispered against his neck.  “Take me to bed, husband.”

Arthur picked him up and carried him, hands under Llewyn’s ass with Llewyn’s firm legs wrapped around his waist.  Arthur’s robe was still open, and his erection rubbed against Llewyn’s panties as he stumbled to the bedroom.  He got to the bed just before he dropped Llewyn.  Llewyn slipped out of Arthur’s arms and landed on his back in the middle of the bed, legs splayed.

“Oh fuck,” Arthur breathed.  He leaned over the side of the bed and nuzzled Llewyn’s groin, then crawled up onto the bed and unclipped the garter’s straps from his stockings.  Arthur worked the panties down past Llewyn’s hips, down his legs, over his feet.  Llewyn’s shoes had fallen off somewhere in the hall.  Arthur fastened the clips back onto Llewyn’s stockings, then sat back to look at him.

“My ass hurts,” said Llewyn.  “You really spanked me hard.”

“Let me see,” said Arthur.  “Turn over.”

Llewyn rolled over on his stomach and squirmed against the bedspread.

“On your hands and knees,” said Arthur.  Llewyn pushed himself up onto his knees, bracing himself on his forearms and elbows.  Arthur pushed his dress up higher and looked at the red marks on Llewyn’s tan ass, then rubbed them with both hands.  Llewyn groaned, and Arthur asked, “Does that hurt?”

“A little,” said Llewyn, “but in a good way.  It feels good.”  He leaned down a little, raising his ass higher, and muttered, “I love feeling your hands on me.  I love it when you touch me.”

Arthur crawled up behind him and caressed the red marks, open-mouthed; then he pushed Llewyn’s thighs farther apart and started rimming him.

“Oh fuck, Arthur, _fuck_ ,” Llewyn moaned.  He collapsed on his chest, head turned to the side and cheek pressed against the bedspread as he hissed, “I fucking love your mouth, baby.”  Arthur reached under Llewyn and stroked him at the same time, careful not to let Llewyn come, until he was too desperate to fuck Llewyn to wait any longer.

“Shit, don’t stop,” groaned Llewyn when Arthur pulled away.  Arthur ignored him, shrugged out of his robe, and leaned over to reach for the lubricant they kept in the nightstand.  “ _Arthur,_ ” Llewyn whined, but he shut up when Arthur dripped lube on him and thrust two fingers in, hard.  Arthur stroked himself a couple times with the lube then grabbed Llewyn’s hips and pushed up against him.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Fuck me,” said Llewyn.

Arthur pushed in all the way on the first stroke.  Llewyn howled, then started bitching again when Arthur held still inside him.

“Dammit, Arthur, fuck me, _fuck me_!”

“I’m gonna come if I start fucking you,” Arthur muttered.  “Hold on.  And quit tensing, your ass is so tight, you’ll make me shoot if you don’t stop it.”  Llewyn sighed and relaxed, although Arthur could feel him trembling.

“Okay,” said Arthur after a minute, and he started thrusting.  Llewyn grunted and pushed back against him.

“Fuck me,” he breathed, “and talk to me.”

“You’re so tight,” Arthur said again.  He wrapped one arm around Llewyn’s waist and leaned over his back, holding him close.  He rubbed Llewyn’s thigh and the stocking and garter strap with his other hand.  “My—nngh—pretty little wife.”

“More,” hissed Llewyn.  He arched his back and ground his ass against Arthur’s abdomen, trying to get him in deeper.  Arthur pressed his chest to Llewyn’s back, hooked his chin over Llewyn’s shoulder, and fucked Llewyn harder.

“You took it so good,” Arthur whispered, “me—me punishing you.  You’re so good.”  He could feel his orgasm building already, pressure gathering at the base of his cock.  He didn’t want to hold back anymore, and he reached under Llewyn to stroke him again.  Llewyn groaned and thrust into Arthur’s fist.

“I’m gonna make you come,” said Arthur.  The pressure was starting to hurt.  “Gonna make you lose it—I love it when you go crazy for me.”

“Nngh,” said Llewyn.  “Fuck, Arthur, I’m gonna come.  Please, let me come this time.”

“Do it.”  Arthur bit his ear and fucked him hard, trying to get the angle right and jerk Llewyn faster at the same time.  “Come for me, baby, come for your husband.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” growled Llewyn.  He came, pulsing in Arthur’s hand and clamping down around him.  His whole little body shook, and he bucked under Arthur like a horse trying to throw him.  The sensation of Llewyn spasming around him set Arthur off too.

“Shit, _shit!_ ” Arthur gasped.  He pressed his mouth against Llewyn’s neck and rocked into him a couple more times, then thrust in deep and stayed there until he finished.  Llewyn was still trembling under him; then he collapsed flat on his stomach, stockinged knees sliding out from under him across the bed.  His downward motion pulled him off of Arthur’s cock, and Arthur knelt over him for a moment, looking down at the sliver of Llewyn’s brown back he could see above the white, lacy garter belt and below the crumpled dress.

“You’re gonna have to wash the bedspread,” muttered Llewyn.  “I got cum all over it.”

“Okay,” said Arthur.  “You know I really don’t mind doing the laundry.”

“I know,” said Llewyn.  He was sweaty and breathing hard.  Arthur lay down on his side and pulled Llewyn into his arms, spooning behind him with the skirt of the dress bunched up between them.  Arthur kissed Llewyn’s neck, tasting his sweat.

“You had me tell you how you’d been bad,” Arthur whispered.  “Now, I’m going to tell you everything you did right.  You made dinner, and you touched raw meat and ketchup to do it.”

Llewyn gave an exhausted laugh.  “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.  I love you too much not to.”  Arthur slid his hand down Llewyn’s stomach and began unfastening the garter belt.  “You almost always make dinner, and it’s almost always good.  You play your guitar and sing, and even when you’re just practicing or fucking around, it makes me feel good to hear you.”

He got the garter belt loose and unclipped the straps from Llewyn’s stockings.  Arthur tossed the belt over his shoulder, to the floor.

“You put up with me being boring.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Llewyn interrupted.  “You’re not boring.”

“Yes, I am.  I can be.  And you stay with me anyway.  You’re amazing in bed—taking it, giving it, whatever.  You’re amazing.”  Arthur closed his eyes and leaned his face into Llewyn’s hair.  “I think about you all day at work, and coming home to you is the best part of my day.  Best part of my _life_.  I don’t tell you that enough, and I’m sorry.  Forgive me, Llew, please.”

“Arthur,” Llewyn sighed then rolled over to face him.  He put his arms around Arthur’s shoulders and kissed him.

“I forgive you,” Llewyn murmured against Arthur’s lips.  “I don’t tell you enough either.”

“Tell me what?” asked Arthur.

“That. . . .”  Llewyn turned his head aside and muttered, “That you’re the best part of my life too.  That I love you.”

After a few minutes, they got up, and Llewyn took off his dress and hung it up, then took off his stockings and left them on a chair.  They got in the shower together and cleaned up, then Llewyn stripped the bedspread off and tossed it on the floor, then they went to bed and spooned again.

“Stay home tomorrow,” said Llewyn.

“I have a lot of work to do,” Arthur told him.  “Tomorrow’s Friday.  I need to get caught up before the weekend.”

“Stay home,” said Llewyn, “with your wife.  I’m not playing tomorrow night.  We could go on a date.”

“A date?  Are we dating now?”  Arthur smiled into the damp black curls trailing the back of Llewyn’s neck.  “All right.  Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s go see a movie,” said Llewyn.

“Okay.  We can go in the afternoon, then I’ll take you out to dinner,” said Arthur.  “Somewhere nice.”

“Do you want me to wear the dress?” Llewyn asked.

“Out?  On our date?”  Arthur did want him to, but he knew better than to say so, because Llewyn might actually do it.  “No, you wouldn’t pass.  Everyone would know you’re a man.”

“Do you want me to pass?  Bet I could if I put some effort into it.”

“Maybe you could,” said Arthur, “but I don’t want you to.  I want you the way you are.  I don’t want to pretend.”  He shifted his head to kiss Llewyn’s bare shoulder.

“Is wearing the dress pretending?” Llewyn asked.

“No.  Hell no.  I love the dress.  I love you _in_ the dress.”  Arthur trailed kisses up the side of Llewyn’s neck.  “And the garter, and the stockings, and the shoes.  And the lipstick, Jesus Christ.  But I love seeing you as a man in them, because you _are_ a man.  You’re a man, and you’re my wife, and I love you.”

“Okay,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll put the dress back on in the morning, and I’ll wear it while I fuck you.  Because you’re my husband.  And I love you.”

Arthur closed his eyes.

After a moment, Llewyn muttered, “I have more panties.  Want me to wear _those_ when we go out?  Under my clothes?”

“Fuck yes,” said Arthur.

\--

To be continued


	9. Chapter 9

**Tuesday, December 24, 1963**

Llewyn was already slightly drunk by the time they left for the party: he’d baked a rum cake and then finished off the leftover rum.  He’d spent the past week complaining about having to go.

“You don’t even like anyone at your office,” Llewyn had said when Arthur told him about it.  “Why you gotta spend Christmas Eve with them?”

“You know I’m up for that promotion,” Arthur said.  “I have to go.  But you don’t have to, you can stay home.”

“I’m not staying home.  I’m not letting you go to party with a bunch of drunk secretaries by yourself,” Llewyn told him.

“I’m not interested in any secretaries,” Arthur pointed out, “and they’re not interested in me.  Besides, I’ve been telling everyone I’m married.”

“They won’t believe that until they see your wife,” Llewyn said.

“Anyway, I’m sure my boss would remember you,” Arthur continued.  “He was pretty mad when he fired you last year.  And why would I be taking a man to a Christmas party?”

“You won’t be taking a man,” said Llewyn.  “You’ll be taking your wife.”

Arthur looked at him over the table.  They were eating dinner, and Llewyn looked back at him as he picked up a chicken drumstick and bit into it.

Finally, Arthur said, “Llew, my office ain’t the best place for you to be kinky.”

“I’m not being kinky,” Llewyn said.  “I’m being practical.  You went and told them you have a wife, so you’re going to show up with a wife.  Nothing kinky about it.”  He tried to spear an English pea on his fork, and it rolled away from him.  Llewyn said, “Fuck,” tried again, and got the pea.

“You’re the one making it into something kinky,” he went on after eating the pea.  “I bet you’re getting hard right now, thinking about taking me to your office in a dress and showing me off.”

“I ain’t getting hard,” Arthur lied.  “And it’s a ridiculous idea.  Even if no one recognizes you from last year, someone’s gonna figure out you’re a guy.”

“No, they won’t,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll shave.  And I’ll wear makeup.  I’ll pass.  You’re not going to that party without me, Al.”  He got up and carried his empty plate into the kitchen.

“Don’t call me Al at the party,” Arthur called after him.  “You’ll just confuse everybody.”

“Don’t piss me off,” Llewyn yelled back, “and I won’t call you Al.”

Arthur started clearing the table, and when he came into the kitchen, he said, “Sometimes you call me Al when we’re fucking, too.”

“Only when you’re wearing that stupid cowboy hat,” Llewyn said.  “So don’t wear it to the office, and don’t fuck me when we get there, and I won’t call you Al.”

\--

Llewyn kept complaining about the party, but he still insisted he was going, so Arthur told them at work that his wife was coming and they’d bring a dessert.  Llewyn bought a dress, and when Arthur got home from work on Christmas Eve, Llewyn was already wearing it.  He’d waxed instead of shaved, and somehow he’d figured out how to do the makeup right.  Except for his nose being too big and his hair not being big enough, he did look like a woman, and Arthur thought he’d probably pass after all.

Llewyn was leaning back on the couch with the near-empty rum bottle in his hand.  He let Arthur kiss him, but when Arthur tried to reach up the full, knee-length skirt of his crimson dress, Llewyn slapped his hand away.

“You can fuck me when we get home,” he muttered.  “You’ll ruin my makeup if we do it now, and anyway, you still need to get ready.”

Arthur took a shower and put on a nicer suit; then he got Llewyn and the rum cake into the car.  Llewyn wasn’t drunk enough to be much trouble—in fact, the slight sway he had to his walk made his movements all the more womanly, and Arthur stayed hard halfway to the office.  He only lost the erection when Llewyn started bitching again about having to go.  Sometimes when he was drunk, Llewyn got horny, but more often, he got aggressive.  Arthur spent the rest of the drive trying to decide if he should let Llewyn drink any more at the party, or not.  He finally decided he had an equal shot at getting laid either way, and there was always the chance that Llewyn would end up horny _and_ aggressive.

“Do you like this dress?” Llewyn asked on the way.

“Yes,” said Arthur.

“You’d better.  It’s a pain in the ass,” Llewyn told him.  “Since the back’s open, I had to put on a backless bra and stuff it to make it look like I have tits.”  He looked down at his chest and poked at it.  “Maybe I should’ve made ‘em bigger.  You think my tits are too small?”

“No.  I like you better without any,” said Arthur, “when you don’t have to pass.  Is that why the neckline is so high on that dress, so you don’t have to worry about cleavage?”

“Yeah, although I really got it for the open back.”  Llewyn leaned forward in his seat and tried to look over his shoulder at his back.  “You like my back, right?”

“Yes, I like your back, Llew,” Arthur sighed.  “And your front.  I like your chest the way it is, but I get why you had to cover it up.”

“Next time,” said Llewyn, “I’ll get a dress that shows more of my décolletage.”

“More of your what?”

“Décolletage.”  Llewyn thumped his chest, just under his collarbone.  “This.  My chest.”

“There ain’t gonna be a next time,” said Arthur, “and that dress is fine.  Saves you from having to wax your chest.”

“I waxed it anyway,” said Llewyn.  “I waxed everything.”

Arthur nearly swerved off the road.  “ _Every_ thing?”

“Everything.”

“Fuck, Llew,” Arthur muttered, “don’t tell me that _now_.”

When they got to the office, Arthur parked and waited for Llewyn to reapply his lipstick.  It was the same shade of red as the dress.

“What do you want me to call you?” Arthur asked.

“Hunh?”  Llewyn looked at himself in the rearview mirror.

“Your name.  If you’re a woman, what’s your name?”

“You didn’t make up a name for me already?”  Llewyn turned his head to glare at Arthur.  “You told everyone you had a wife, and they didn’t want to know my name?”

Arthur shrugged.  “No one asked.  They aren’t that interested in me, or in my wife.”  He thought they’d probably be interested in the latter after tonight, though.  Llewyn looked beautiful.

“Fine,” Llewyn muttered.  “Call me Louella.”

“Oh come on,” said Arthur, “that’s too obvious.  They’ll figure out who you are.”

“It’s your fucking problem if they do,” said Llewyn, “for not giving me a name already.  And anyway, they probably don’t even remember me.  I worked there for three weeks.  Besides, you’ll forget and call me Llew, and this way it won’t matter.  They’ll think you’re saying ‘Lou.’”  He got out of the car, swaying on his red heels, and slammed the door.  Arthur sighed and got out too, and Llewyn took his cake from the backseat.

Llewyn was right: no one recognized him, and he passed.  A couple of the salesman stared as Arthur introduced Llewyn as Mrs. Louella Milgrum, but they were staring like they wondered how Arthur had ended up with such a catch, and maybe a little like they wanted to let that catch off Arthur’s hook and get her onto _their_ rods—even the one who’d showed up with his own wife.  Arthur kept his hand on the small of Llewyn’s back, just below the open part of the dress.

The party was going on in the open front office, where the secretaries had put up and decorated a tree a week before.  Arthur’s boss and his wife were over by the folding table of food set up against one wall.  She was setting out the food, and he was reorganizing it and making all the plates line up.

“He has to micromanage everything,” Arthur muttered to Llewyn as they approached, but of course Llewyn already knew that after working in the office for three weeks.  Probably the only thing the boss _didn’t_ micromanage was his wife, and she snapped at him to quit messing with the dishes just as Llewyn set down his rum cake.

“Good evening, Mr. Witmer,” said Arthur.  He looked at his boss, then up at his boss’s wife.  She was an inch taller than Arthur in flats, and tonight she was wearing heels.  “Mrs. Witmer.”

“Milgrum,” said Witmer.  He nodded at Arthur then looked at Llewyn.  Witmer looked surprised, and Arthur worried that Witmer recognized him.

“This is my wife,” said Arthur, “Louella.  Louella, this is Mr. and Mrs. Witmer.”

“Phoebe,” said Mrs. Witmer.  She looked down at Llewyn, flicking her blue eyes over him; then she smiled.  “Nice to meet you.”  Arthur wondered if she had been sizing Llewyn up and deeming him not to be a threat.  He wasn’t sure if that was the way women worked or not.  But her husband wasn’t staring anymore, and he’d only looked at Llewyn like he was surprised he was with Arthur, not like he wanted to fuck him.

_Her,_ Arthur reminded himself.

No wonder Witmer wasn’t interested in fucking “Louella,” though: Phoebe was taller than her husband (who was a little shorter than Arthur), and blond, and thin with a face that might have been cute on someone less intimidating.  Her legs were as long as Llewyn’s were short.

“This is a rum cake,” Llewyn said.  He nudged the plate forward, and Witmer nudged it back into line as soon as Llewyn took his hand away.

“Great,” said Phoebe.  “Looks delicious.”  She was wearing a high-necked dress too, but hers was form-fitting and sleeveless, and covered in dark green and silver sequins.  Llewyn saw Arthur looking at it and glared at him.

“You don’t look very festive, Milgrum,” Witmer said.  Both of them were wearing black suits, but then Witmer always wore black; navy would have clashed with his red hair.  He had a sprig of holly pinned to one lapel.  He nodded toward a pile of unused decorations on one of the secretaries’ desks and said, “Go put on a hat or something.”

“Sure,” said Arthur.  He went over to the desk, hand still on Llewyn’s waist to pull the smaller man along.

“Witmer’s wife is hot,” said Llewyn when they were out of earshot, barely.

“She doesn’t usually dress like that,” Arthur said.  He started picking through the decorations, then took up a Santa Claus hat.

“How many times have you met—fuck no, you are _not_ wearing that,” Llewyn interrupted himself.  “What’s with you and stupid hats, anyway?”

“Witmer said to put on a hat,” said Arthur.  He tried it on.  It covered his ears, and that was enough to satisfy him.

“He said a hat _or something_.  Do the _or something_ , put a garland around your neck,” grumbled Llewyn.  “Just take that fucking hat off.”

“Fuck you, Llew,” said Arthur.  Llewyn’s displeasure with the hat sealed Arthur’s commitment to wearing it.  “Do you want a drink?”

“Go fuck yourself, Al,” Llewyn retorted.  “I’ll get my own drink.”  He sashayed away on his heels, and one of the secretaries cornered Arthur before he could follow.

“Hi, Mr. Milgrum,” she cooed.  She was a redhead like the boss, but curvy and solid instead of vaguely fragile-looking.  She usually didn’t pay Arthur much attention, but she, like Llewyn, was already somewhat drunk.

“Hi,” said Arthur.

“Nice hat.”  She giggled.  “It’s cute.”

“Thanks,” said Arthur.  “Did you help decorate the office?  It looks nice.”

“Yep!  The other girls wanted to put up the same old aluminum tree we had last year, you remember it.  But I wanted a real tree, so I went and asked Mr. Witmer, and he said that would be better.  So then we had to go buy ornaments for it, and a star, so he gave us an extra hour for lunch and some cash, and the girls weren’t complaining _then!_ ”

“I guess not,” said Arthur.  He looked over at the makeshift bar—another folding table—to see what Llewyn was doing.  He had his head tipped back, draining a cocktail glass.  Arthur watched Llewyn’s throat shift as he swallowed; then he looked at Llewyn’s bare back when he turned to set down the glass and grab another.

“Is that your girlfriend?” the secretary asked.  She was looking over at Llewyn too.

“Wife,” said Arthur.

“Oh,” said the secretary.  She looked at Arthur again.  “I knew you were married, but I didn’t think your wife looked like _that_.  I thought maybe you were having an affair.”

“Well, that’s her,” said Arthur.  “I wouldn’t ever cheat on my wife.”

“She’s pretty,” said the secretary.  Arthur looked at Llewyn again.  He was watching them and glaring, and when Arthur saw him, Llewyn snatched up a second glass in his free hand and came over.

“Here,” he said.  He handed the glass to Arthur.

“Thanks,” said Arthur.  He didn’t really feel like drinking, so he held the glass awkwardly in his left hand and put his right on Llewyn’s back.  He told the secretary, “This is Louella, my wife.  Lou, this is Cheryl.”

“Hi,” said the secretary.  “I like your dress.”

Llewyn looked at her, took another swallow from his glass, then said, “Thanks.”

Cheryl searched the room, spotted another of “the girls,” and excused herself.

“Take that fucking hat off,” Llewyn whispered.  He tipped back his head again and finished his second drink.  What was left of his lipstick left a faint red semicircle near the glass’s rim.

“No,” Arthur whispered back.  “I need that promotion.  If the boss tells me to wear a hat, I’m wearing a hat.”

“You do not need that promotion,” growled Llewyn, still under his breath.  “You do not need this _job_.  You’re getting royalties.”

“They’re tapering off,” muttered Arthur.  “That song’s almost three years old now, and with the assassination last month—it ain’t right to play it anymore.  I told you that, but you never listen when I talk about our finances.  You’re useless with money, Llew.”

“You think fuckin’ Cheryl’s any better with money?” said Llewyn, a bit louder.  “Or what’s her fuckin’ face, Miss Boss’s Wife?  That dress must’ve cost a fortune.  Mine was on sale.”

“Don’t talk so loud, Llewyn,” said Arthur.  He finally took a sip from his glass because Witmer was looking over at them.

“I’m still making money too, remember?” Llewyn pointed out, without getting any quieter.  “Because _I_ still write music, and I still perform.  I didn’t sell out like you did.”

“I need to go talk to some other people,” Arthur said.  “I won’t get promoted to head of sales if it looks like I can’t talk to people, because then how would I sell stuff?”

“Go to hell, Al,” said Llewyn.  “I’m getting another drink.”

He went back to the bar, and Arthur tried his best to mingle.  After a while, and enough alcohol, the party got more relaxed, and someone put Christmas records on the player they’d brought in.  The first one was Bing Crosby doing “White Christmas,” and Arthur smiled to himself thinking about how much Llewyn hated that song.

“Bunch of sentimental bullshit,” he’d complained last year, their first Christmas together, every time Arthur played the record.  Llewyn said he didn’t like Christmas music much anyway, or Christmas trees, or Christmas anything.  But this year he’d insisted on a real tree for their living room, just like Cheryl had for the front office.  Llewyn was too short to put the star on top, so he made Arthur do it; then Llewyn had unhooked one of the candy canes Arthur hung on the tree and sat on the couch playing his guitar with the candy cane sticking out of his mouth instead of his usual cigarette.

While Arthur listened to one of the sales managers boasting about the commission he’d made last month, his eyes sought out Llewyn.  Llewyn stood by the food table with a glass in his hand.  When he saw Arthur looking at him, he scowled and looked away.  Arthur sighed.  The sales manager didn’t notice, and he kept talking.

The food started running out before the alcohol did, and people got restless.  Arthur needed to go to his own small office, without Llewyn.  Last Christmas, Llewyn had proved to be exceptionally nosy, and he’d found all his presents Arthur had hidden at home, before Arthur could get them wrapped.  This year, Arthur had kept Llewyn’s gifts in his office.  He’d gotten them all home and wrapped by now except one, which he’d kept locked in his desk because Llewyn could probably have guessed what it was from the size and shape of the little box it was in.

Arthur finally got away from the sales manager and started back to the hall leading to his office, but before he got there, he heard Witmer call his name.  Arthur stifled a sign and turned back.

“You sing, don’t you, Milgrum?” Witmer asked.  He was over near the record player, talking loud enough for Arthur to hear him at the back of the room.  Everyone else could hear him too.  “Why don’t you sing us something?  Liven things up.”

“I don’t sing,” said Arthur, “not anymore.  I quit a couple years ago.”

Llewyn was eating a deviled egg.  All the other platters were empty.

“He doesn’t sing anymore,” said Llewyn, as loudly as Witmer.  “He sold out.”

Arthur looked at Llewyn, then at Witmer.

“Louella sings,” said Arthur.

“No—” Llewyn started to say.

“She sings at a bar most weekends,” said Arthur, talking over him.  “Gets paid for it, even.”  He looked at Llewyn again.  Llewyn’s jaw was set, but he opened it to mouth, “Fuck you.”

“Oh, well then.  Why don’t you sing something?” said Witmer to Llewyn.  “Something festive.”

Llewyn looked at him.  “I don’t sing without music.  I play the guitar.”

“We’ve got music,” said Witmer.  He gestured to the record player.  “Pick something out.”

Llewyn turned back to Arthur and gave him a long, hard look from across the room.  Arthur knew Llewyn hated being called on to perform at short notice, especially for free.  He knew Llewyn had been pissed at him already for the hat and the secretaries and Phoebe Witmer.  He knew Llewyn was drunk—aggressive-drunk, not horny-drunk.  And he knew from the look on Llewyn’s face that he was calculating the best way to get revenge on Arthur for all of it.

_Shit,_ thought Arthur, _he’s gonna blow my promotion.  He’s gonna tell them he’s a man, or cuss out Witmer.  Why the hell did I tell them he sings, why do I always gotta fuck things up with him?_   The real question at the heart of it all was, why did Llewyn Davis drive him so crazy, in every sense of the cliché, and it was a question Arthur would probably never be able to answer.

Llewyn looked over at Witmer and said, “Okay, I’ll sing.  If I get to pick the song.”

“Be our guest,” said Witmer, and he gestured at the record player and the stack of vinyls beside it.

Arthur’s legs went shaky with relief, and he sat down in a rolling chair someone had pulled up between the secretaries’ desks.  Llewyn sashayed over to the record player, his walk more womanly than ever, and shuffled through the albums with his back to Arthur.  He paused over one as Arthur looked at the dark hair falling in curls over the back of his neck.  Arthur’s eyes dropped to Llewyn’s tan back and ran down his spine to the slight dip of his waist right above his ass, then past the skirt to Llewyn’s waxed calves encased in stockings with their seams all crooked.  Arthur could see a red mark on one ankle, even through the stocking, where Llewyn’s shoe was rubbing a blister.

Llewyn tugged the arm of the player off the spinning record, and it gave a squawk that silenced Frank Sinatra in the middle of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (which Llewyn hated even more than “White Christmas”).  He switched the records and shoved _A Jolly Christmas with Frank Sinatra_ halfway back into its sleeve before putting the needle down on the new album.  As Llewyn turned away from the player, Mr. Witmer frowned and picked up Frank and put him back in the sleeve properly.

When the music started, it was Eartha Kitt, “Santa Baby,” and Arthur realized Llewyn was getting his revenge after all.  Because he was Llewyn, it was a subtle, passive-aggressive bullshit kind of revenge.  He didn’t want to fuck up Arthur’s promotion; he wanted to embarrass Arthur, just like Arthur had embarrassed him.

Arthur had thought Llewyn might sound too much like a man when he started to sing, but he didn’t.  His voice certainly wasn’t feminine like Eartha’s, but somehow, he managed to sound enough like a woman.  He gave the words a husky, throaty quality like a cocktail lounge singer, and the rather insipid little song came out sexy instead.

Llewyn’s eyes locked on Arthur’s as he sang, “Been an awful good girl,” and Arthur thought, _Oh no you haven’t._   He managed a scowl to convey his disapproval of Llewyn’s method of vengeance, but the scowl just egged Llewyn on.  He started moving toward Arthur, swaying his hips on those perfect legs, and Arthur felt his face burn.

“Santa baby, a ‘54 convertible too, light blue,” sang Llewyn, and the women were starting to giggle—not because they realized he was a guy, but because here was quiet, amenable Arthur Milgrum’s smoking hot wife seducing him in front of everyone, and wasn’t it just _adorable_ the way Mrs. Milgrum thrust out her perfectly sculpted lower lip when she told him, “I’ll wait up for you, dear.”  The men were silent, staring.

Llewyn reached Arthur and leaned forward to brace himself with both hands on the seated man’s shoulders.

“Think of all the fun I’ve missed, think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed.”  Llewyn’s reddish-brown eyes stayed fixed on Arthur’s.  “Next year I could be just as good if you’ll check off my Christmas list.”

_Good?!_ thought Arthur.  He narrowed his eyes, and Llewyn saw it.  He pressed his lips together for a beat in between verses, then plopped down in Arthur’s lap—not sideways but straddling it.  Arthur gasped.  The full crimson skirt of Llewyn’s dress still covered his legs down to his knees, but someone whistled anyway, and Arthur was well-aware of Llewyn’s gartered thighs on either side of him.

“I want a yacht, and really that’s not a lot,” cooed Llewyn with a pout to his tone, matching Eartha’s perfectly despite the difference in their voices.  “Been an angel all year.”

“Like hell,” hissed Arthur between clenched teeth.  Now Llewyn just smirked as he kept singing, and he rocked forward.  His groin pressed against Arthur’s, and Arthur started getting hard.

“Santa honey,” sang Llewyn, “one little thing I really need.”  He thrust his hips forward again on “need,” and the pressure of him on Arthur’s cock made Arthur nearly forget everyone else in the room, and all the eyes fixed on Llewyn’s effort to humiliate him.  Llewyn’s eyelids, which had been lowered even farther than normal, lifted, and his seductive eyes widened when he felt Arthur’s erection.  He kept singing, and probably only Arthur noticed the slight flush of color that came to his cheeks.

When Llewyn got to “Come and trim my Christmas tree,” whoever it was whistled again and Arthur heard some chuckles from the men in attendance which drowned out the part about decorations and Tiffany’s.  They sounded like they wanted to trim Llewyn’s tree too, and Arthur put his hands up on the smaller man’s waist.  Llewyn had dropped his eyelashes down again, and he smiled when Arthur touched him.

Llewyn leaned forward and ground himself on Arthur, and his voice rasped when he sang, “I really do believe in you, let’s see if you believe in me.”  His lips were so close to Arthur’s, they almost brushed, and his eyes were nearly closed.  Llewyn clearly wasn’t interested in the revenge aspect of the performance anymore, just the seduction part, and Arthur decided he’d be willing to postpone their fight if that’s what Llewyn wanted.

“Santa baby. . . .”  Llewyn’s voice was little more than a murmur, and Arthur wondered if anyone else could even hear him.  “Forgot to mention one little thing, a ring.”

Arthur drew in his breath with a hiss, and his cheeks burned again.  He’d forgotten about that line.

“I don’t mean on the phone, Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight,” Llewyn sang.  He moved his hips in a circle, and Arthur felt Llewyn’s erection press into his own.  Llewyn finished the song up against Arthur’s chest, head tilted to the side, and only a hint of his dark eyes showing through his lashes as he whispered, “Hurry. . . tonight.”

Arthur kissed him before the record ended; he couldn’t wait, and he didn’t care that everyone was watching.  Llewyn squawked, and his lips fumbled under Arthur’s.  But Arthur cuffed a hand over the back of his head and held it down, and then Llewyn opened his mouth and kissed him back, hard and deep.

“Hell, Milgrum, I think she wants you _up_ her chimney,” someone said.  The comment brought Arthur back to reality, and he let Llewyn go.  Llewyn drew back with his lips still parted and his makeup smeared, blinked at Arthur, then looked over at Witmer.  Witmer was still staring at them.  His wife was making herself another drink.

“Okay, I sang,” Llewyn said to Witmer.  “That’ll be fifty bucks.”  When Witmer just kept staring, Llewyn added, “Kidding,” and got up.  He smoothed his skirt, and Arthur tugged his jacket down over the bulge in his pants.

Someone, probably the chimney guy, started applauding, and most everyone else joined in.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.

As soon as no one was looking at him anymore, Arthur got up and sneaked back to the hall.  Before he made it to his office, Llewyn came after him.

“You have your own office now, right?” Llewyn muttered.

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  He got to the door and unlocked it.  “In here.  I just need to get something—”

Llewyn pushed him in, followed him, then shut the door and locked it back.

“Sit down,” he said.  He looked around as Arthur went over to the chair behind his desk.

“I thought it would be bigger,” said Llewyn.

“It will be if I get that promotion,” Arthur said.  Llewyn got between Arthur’s chair and the desk and looked down at him.

“You’ll get it,” said Llewyn.  He dropped to his knees and pushed Arthur’s legs apart.

“How do you know?” Arthur asked, then, “What are you doing?” when Llewyn wriggled backwards under the desk.  Llewyn grabbed Arthur’s ankles and tugged until his chair rolled forward.

“I’ve wanted to blow you under your desk ever since I worked here,” said Llewyn, “but you didn’t have your own office back then.”

“Llew, you—you can’t, not with a party going on out there—aah!”  Arthur groaned when Llewyn ground his palm into his groin.

“Won’t take long,” Llewyn told him.  “You nearly came when I sat on your lap.”  He unzipped Arthur’s pants and freed his erection, then leaned up to flick his tongue over the head.

“Shit, Llew,” Arthur breathed.  He reached up to pull his Santa Claus hat off, but Llewyn shook his head.

“Leave it on.”  Llewyn opened his mouth and moved further up, cracked the top of his head on the underside of the desk, and swore.  Arthur started to laugh but cut it short when Llewyn lurched up a second time and put his mouth over the end of Arthur’s cock.

He was right; it didn’t take long.  Arthur watched Llewyn go down on him, watched Llewyn’s dark eyes flick up to look at him through their long lashes and Llewyn’s lips wrap around his shaft.  If he’d wanted to hold out, Arthur wouldn’t have looked, because watching Llewyn always got him off quick.  But Arthur wanted to get out of his office before anyone realized they were both missing and guessed at what was going on.  More than that, Arthur wanted to come for Llewyn.

“Close,” he gasped as he started to throb in Llewyn’s mouth.

“Mmh,” said Llewyn.  He closed his eyes and sucked harder.  Arthur reached down, laced his long fingers into Llewyn’s curls, and thrust in his mouth with short, shallow strokes.  He climaxed within seconds, gritting his teeth to keep from making too much noise.  Llewyn clamped his lips around Arthur’s cock and didn’t let up until it started going soft and Arthur was whining and trying to pull away from the overstimulation.

Llewyn finally let him go and pushed his chair back away from the desk, then clambered out from under it.  He narrowly missed hitting his head a second time.  He climbed up onto Arthur’s chair, kneeling on either side of his legs, and leaned in to kiss him.  Arthur could taste himself in Llewyn’s mouth along with the cocktails.

This time, Llewyn let Arthur put a hand up his skirt, and when Arthur groped him through his panties, Llewyn growled into his mouth, “Get me off.”  Arthur squeezed him then dug in the heel of his hand with his fingers curled under Llewyn’s balls.  Llewyn groaned and wrapped his arms around Arthur’s shoulder to anchor himself, then started bucking into Arthur’s hand.  His eyes were closed, and he clenched his lower lip between his teeth.  Arthur put his other hand on Llewyn’s bare lower back to feel his warm, smooth skin.

“Nnh, nnh,” Llewyn grunted as he rode Arthur’s hand, and within a minute, he came, letting up on his lip to hiss, “Fuck!”  He shuddered, and Arthur felt Llewyn’s cum soaking into his panties.  After he finished, Llewyn slumped against him and shivered.  Arthur turned his head to kiss Llewyn’s temple.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“Love you too,” Llewyn panted.  He shivered again then pulled away and climbed down off the chair.  He wobbled more on the heels than before as he fixed his skirt.  Arthur stood up, zipped up his pants, and looked at the locked top drawer of his desk.  He couldn’t get the present out without Llewyn knowing, and anyway, his hand was wet.

“We need to clean up,” he muttered.

The office only had a small, single bathroom, and Phoebe Witmer came out of it as they approached.  She stopped, looked them both over, then held the bathroom door open.

“Inside,” she said to Llewyn.  “You need to fix your makeup.”

Llewyn glared at her but went in.  She kept the door open and looked at Arthur.

“What?” he said.

“Go on in,” she said.  “You’re not fooling anybody.”

Arthur thought she meant that everyone knew what they’d been doing in his office, but after she followed them into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, she said to Llewyn, “If you’re going to go around as a woman, you need to start carrying a purse.”

Llewyn looked at her and said, “What.”

“You heard me,” Phoebe said.  “You need something to put your makeup in so you can touch it up.  At least if you’re going to be fucking Arthur in public.”

“We weren’t in public,” said Llewyn.  He turned to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror.  “We were in his office.”

“You know what I mean,” Phoebe said.

“And we weren’t fucking,” Llewyn went on.  He turned to the commode, his back to Phoebe and Arthur, and hiked up the front of his skirt to clean himself off with a handful of toilet tissue.

“You look like you’ve been fucking,” Phoebe said, “whatever you were doing.”

“I gave him a blow job,” said Llewyn.

“Shut up, Llew,” Arthur hissed.  He moved to the sink and washed his hands.  “How did you know he’s not a woman?” he asked Phoebe in a mutter.  “Is it that obvious?”

“ _You_ shut up, Al,” said Llewyn.  He dropped the tissue in the toilet and flushed it.

“Al?” Phoebe asked.

“It’s a nickname,” said Arthur. “But how did you—”

“It’s not that obvious.”  She shrugged.  “None of the guys would have noticed—men think with their dicks, and if a woman’s hot enough, their dicks won’t be asking if she’s really a man.”

Arthur had a vague feeling that he should be offended, but he decided he’d stereotyped women often enough for him to deserve a little reverse sexism.  Arthur’s cousin had started talking a lot about women’s rights just before he cut off contact with his family, and maybe some of it had sunk in.  Or maybe he was just too scared of his boss’s wife to argue.

“So you think I passed?” Llewyn asked her.  He’d turned around again and had his skirt back in place.  “With everyone but you?  What about the secretaries, the other women?”

“I don’t think they noticed.  Most of them were drinking, and they wouldn’t have paid attention since you’re not a threat,” said Phoebe.  “You’re obviously not after their men, considering how you were riding yours out there.”

Arthur blushed; Llewyn just glared at her.  Phoebe tore a paper towel off the roll and dampened it at the sink.

“You need to learn a little more about makeup though,” she said as she dabbed at the last of the lipstick smeared around Llewyn’s mouth.  When Llewyn drew back, Phoebe grabbed a handful of hair on the side of his head and held him still, the way Arthur’s mother used to do to him when he was a kid and needed to be cleaned up for dinner.

“It’s not like I do this every day,” Llewyn sulked.  “I had to pretend to be his wife because he lied and said he had one.”  Arthur looked down at Llewyn’s red shoes and bit his lip.

“If you’re going to pretend to be his wife,” said Phoebe, “you should wear a ring.  Both of you,” she added with a glance back at Arthur.  She had a ring, a simple white gold—or platinum—band with an engagement ring above it.  The engagement ring was a solitaire, with a large, colorless diamond.  Phoebe blotted the liner smudged under Llewyn’s eyes then let him go.

“I guess you don’t have your lipstick on you,” she said.

“It’s in the car,” said Llewyn.  “Are you finished?”

“You look presentable enough.  Just be more careful next time.”  Phoebe dropped the paper towel in the trash and looked at Arthur again.

“Thanks,” Arthur mumbled.

“Yeah,” she said.  “John’s going to give you that promotion.  He was talking about it on the way over here.”

Arthur asked, “You really don’t think he knows Llewyn’s a man?”

“That’s your name, ‘Llewyn’?  ‘Louella’ isn’t very creative then,”  Phoebe said over her shoulder.  To Arthur, she said, “No, of course not.  He wouldn’t know it if Llewyn showed him his dick, and I’m not going to enlighten him.  Now move, I’ve got to get back out there.”  She pushed Arthur out of the way and unlocked the door and went out.

“I forgot something in my office,” Arthur said as he and Llewyn left the bathroom.  “Work I’ve got to finish up.”

“You’ve got work to finish on Christmas?” Llewyn muttered.  “Figures.  You go get your _work_ , I’m gonna get another drink.”

Llewyn went to the front office, and Arthur went back to his.  He unlocked his desk and took out the box with Llewyn’s present and stood looking at it a minute.  Then he tucked the little box into his jacket and locked up again.

When Arthur got back to the front office, one of the drunk salesmen was making a pass at Llewyn.  Arthur hung back in the hall and watched to see what Llewyn would do.  He shoved the guy’s hand off his ass.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Llewyn grumbled.  “I’m married.”

“Yeah, to _Milgrum_ ,” said the salesman.  “Bet he can’t fuck a real woman like you the way you need it.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Llewyn.  “Now fuck off.”

“Your loss,” said the salesman.  “But here’s some advice.  If you’re serious about being faithful to that downer, you oughta wear your ring.  Otherwise, how’s a guy to know that—”

“Why the fuck do I gotta wear a fuckin’ ring,” growled Llewyn.  “What’s everyone’s so hung up on the fuckin’ ring for.”  His voice was getting louder— _classic drunk Llewyn,_ Arthur thought with half of his brain while the other half processed, with increasing consternation, what Llewyn was bitching about.  A couple people had turned to look at him.

“I’m not some damn piece of property to lay a fuckin’ claim on,” Llewyn said.  He poked the salesman in the chest with a finger.  “By your hand on my ass or—or Arthur’s ring on my finger, so fuck off.”

“Okay, geez.”  The guy backed off, and Arthur slunk into the room to try to shut Llewyn up before he said anything else.  The salesman looked at Arthur and said, “You sure can pick ‘em, Milgrum.”

“Fuck off,” said Arthur.  The guy gave him a startled and somewhat impressed look before he walked away, but Phoebe came over to shut Llewyn up too.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” she said.

“You fuck off too,” said Llewyn.  Arthur groaned and clamped a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, we’re going home,” he muttered.  Llewyn swatted at his hand and dipped his shoulder to loosen Arthur’s grip.

“’M not finished,” he said.  He continued railing at Phoebe, “You fuckin’ started it, anyway.  Why d’ _you_ wear a ring if you’re such a, a fuckin’ liberated bitch?”

“Llew, shut _up_ ,” Arthur hissed.  Phoebe just shrugged, though.

“Because I like wearing it.  I don’t have to, I choose to.  And I didn’t say you had to either, even when you’re playing housewife.  It’s just that most women wear their wedding rings.”  She looked Llewyn up and down then said, “You need to work on not getting offended so easily.  You’ll be happier.”

“What the fuck do you know about me,” muttered Llewyn.

Phoebe rolled her eyes.  “Okay, maybe you’re determined _not_ to be happy, but Arthur’s not going to be happy either if you’re such a selfish little shit all the time.”  She sighed and glanced over at Arthur.  “Good luck getting him home.  And merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” said Arthur.  He got another grip on Llewyn, this time on his wrist, and tugged him toward the front door.  He was surprised when Llewyn went quietly.

\--

To be continued


	10. Chapter 10

“Fuck, I forgot my cake plate,” said Llewyn on the way home.  He was looking out the window.

“I’ll bring it home next week,” said Arthur, “since we have the rest of this week off.”

“You won’t forget?”  Llewyn sighed and sank down farther in the passenger seat.  “You’re gonna forget.”

“I won’t forget, Llewyn.”

 Arthur turned into their neighborhood, and Llewyn asked, “Are you unhappy with me?”

“I’m not mad at you, Llew,” Arthur said, but Llewyn shook his head and looked at him.

“No, I mean are you unhappy being with me.  What’s-her-face said you weren’t happy with me.”

“No, she didn’t.  She said I wouldn’t be happy if you were a selfish little shit all the time,” Arthur explained.  “You’re only a selfish little shit part of the time.”  He gave his usual awkward laugh even though he felt miserable.

“Don’t fuckin’ joke about it.”  Llewyn’s voice was still slurred, but he sounded serious.  “If you’re not happy being with me—”  He broke off and turned back to the window and growled, “That asshole talking to me when you came in from the back, he grabbed my ass.  He said you were a downer.”

“I probably am,” said Arthur.

“You’re fucking not,” said Llewyn.  “I told him to fuck off.  Fuckin’ piece of shit, he’d’ve had a heart attack if he’d grabbed my dick instead of my ass.  Said you didn’t know how to fuck me.  I wanted you to bend me over and fuck me right there in front of him, show him how real men fuck.”

Despite his misery, Arthur’s cock twitched.  He pulled the car into the garage and parked it.

“Llewyn, I’m happy being with you,” he said.  “Mrs. Witmer’s right, you need to not get offended so easy.  Don’t let people get to you so bad, don’t listen to them.”  Llewyn turned back to look at him.

“I love you,” Arthur said.

“Even when I’m being a selfish little shit?”  Llewyn’s lips, still stained a bit red even though he’d bitten and licked his lipstick off long before, twitched into a smile.

“Yes,” said Arthur.  He managed to smile back.  “Even then.”

“I love you too,” said Llewyn, “even when you’re being a downer.  But you weren’t tonight, even with the stupid hat.”  He glanced up at Arthur’s head.  “Which you’re still wearing.”

“Shit,” said Arthur.  “I forgot to take it off.  I’ll have to bring it back to work on Monday.”  He started to remove the hat, but Llewyn grabbed his wrist and held it.

“You got so fucking hard with me sitting on your lap,” Llewyn said, “and you blew your load so fucking hard in my mouth.”  He let go of Arthur’s wrist, leaned over, and hooked his arm around the larger man’s neck to pull him down for a kiss.

“I wanna sit on your lap, Santa,” Llewyn muttered after the kiss, “and tell you what a naughty little girl I am.”

“Fuck, Llew,” groaned Arthur, misery swiftly dissipating in favor of lust.  “You think the hat’s stupid, how about your—your dumb Christmas innuendos?”  Llewyn dropped a hand into Arthur’s lap and groped him as they kissed again.

“You mean you don’t wanna hear about how I’m gonna unwrap your package—your fuckin’ huge package—and. . . fuck, Arthur,” Llewyn moaned into Arthur’s mouth as Arthur slid a hand up his skirt and fondled him.  He was hard again under his damp panties.

“You’re getting coal and switches,” said Arthur.

“Fuck the coal,” said Llewyn.  “Just gimme the switches, switch the fuck outta my ass.”  He squeezed Arthur’s cock through his pants.

In between hard kisses to Llewyn’s mouth, Arthur said, “Yeah and then I’ll—I’ll stuff your stocking.”

“With your, nngh, your candy c-cane?  You gonna come up my chim—chimney?”  Llewyn started laughing.  “W-we sound so. . . so fuckin’ stupid.”  He collapsed against Arthur, trembling with drunk laughter; then Arthur started laughing too, into Llewyn’s hair, as he held the smaller man close.

“Inside,” Llewyn gasped.  He squeezed Arthur’s cock again then sat up, still snickering and shaking.  “Take me inside and, what’d that jackass say, fuck me the way a real woman like me needs it.”

They went in, and as soon as Arthur locked the door—he always locked the doors, even the one to the garage, and Llewyn never locked them—Llewyn shoved him up against it, raised up on his toes, and kissed Arthur again.  They pulled off their coats and kissed some more, and Arthur put his hands on Llewyn’s bare back and spread his fingers, touching as much of Llewyn’s skin as he could.  Then Llewyn stepped back and started stripping Arthur’s suit jacket off him.  Arthur shrugged out of it and let it fall to the ground before Llewyn could notice the weight of the box in one pocket.  Once the jacket was off, Llewyn grabbed Arthur’s tie and used it to pull him over to sit on the couch.

“Don’t move,” Llewyn told him.  He disappeared into the hall.  Arthur got up, crossed the dark living room, and plugged in their Christmas tree.

“Dammit, Al, I told you not to move,” said Llewyn from the doorway.  He’d come back with lube, which meant he wanted Arthur to fuck him.  “Get your bony ass back on that couch.”

“I needed some light.  I want to be able to see you,” said Arthur.  He turned and looked at Llewyn.  Llewyn’s curly hair was tousled, and his makeup had gotten smudged again despite Phoebe Witmer’s efforts to clean it up.  He had a run in one stocking, and he’d taken his heels off.

“You look beautiful,” said Arthur.

“Fuck you, I look like shit,” said Llewyn.  “Go sit down.”

Arthur went back to the couch and sat down.  Llewyn straddled his lap like he’d done at the office and pulled off Arthur’s tie and opened his shirt.  He ran his small hands down Arthur’s chest to his waist and started unfastening his pants.  Llewyn watched his hands, and Arthur watched Llewyn’s face.  Llewyn grimaced.

“Shit, can’t get your fuckin’ pants open,” he growled.  He got back to his feet and staggered backwards.  “Take ‘em off.”

“Should you be ordering Santa around like this?” asked Arthur.  “This close to Christmas?”

“Take ‘em off,” Llewyn said again.  He rocked his hips forward, swishing his skirt around his knees, and Arthur fumbled with the pants until he got them open.  He lifted his ass up off the couch to tug the pants and his underwear down, and Llewyn dropped to his knees and started pulling off Arthur’s shoes.  When he got them off, he yanked Arthur’s pants off too and crawled up between his legs to suck Arthur’s cock back into his mouth.  Arthur pushed his fingers into the dark curls of the smaller man’s hair but didn’t hold his head down; he just wanted to touch Llewyn’s hair, which looked black in the dim, golden-red glow from the tree.

Llewyn only went down on him long enough for Arthur to get hard again, then climbed back onto his lap.  He lifted his skirt to pull his panties off, but Arthur grasped his hands to stop him.

“Leave ‘em on,” he growled in a thick voice he hardly recognized as his own.

“You kinky fucker,” said Llewyn.

“You’re the one in a dress,” said Arthur.  He picked up the bottle of lube from where Llewyn had dropped it on the couch cushion and opened it.  As he smeared it on one hand, then pulled the crotch of Llewyn’s panties to the side, he went on, “And you’re the one who wanted to blow me under my desk.”  
  
“That’s not being a kinky— _fuck!_ ”  Llewyn broke off as Arthur started fingering him with the lube.  He tried again, “Not being a kinky fucker, that’s being a good wife.”  He groaned and pushed down on Arthur’s fingers and didn’t notice the tremor that passed over Arthur’s face.  Llewyn leaned forward and bit at his ear and whispered, “Fuck me, Al.  I don’t want your fingers, I want your cock plowing my ass.”

Arthur drew his fingers out and pulled Llewyn down onto his cock instead.  Llewyn rode him hard at first, and the fact that they’d each already come once was the only thing keeping either of them from climaxing right away.  But then Llewyn slowed down and wrapped his arms around Arthur’s shoulders.  Arthur put his around Llewyn’s waist and rested his chin on the smaller man’s shoulder and moved Llewyn up and down on his cock.

“Fuck, Al,” Llewyn groaned, “Arthur, baby.”  He rocked back and forth and ground his groin against Arthur’s abdomen through his dress.

“Llew,” Arthur breathed over his shoulder.  Llewyn lifted his legs to either side of Arthur’s waist and gripped it between his calves.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, “fuck me deeper, split me open.”

Arthur locked his arms around Llewyn’s waist and stood, flipping the smaller man over on his back on the couch without pulling out, then started thrusting in him again.  Llewyn looked up at him in the faint glow from the tree, his eyes a dark glitter through his lowered lashes.  Arthur put a hand up Llewyn’s skirt and rubbed his erection through his panties, and Llewyn’s lips parted.  His breath quickened, chest rising and falling under the padded bodice of his dress, and when Arthur angled his next thrust up into his prostate, Llewyn groaned.

“Gonna come if you keep—keep doing that,” Llewyn breathed.

“You wanna come, baby?” Arthur whispered.  He held still inside Llewyn.  “Or you want it to last?”

“Make me come,” hissed Llewyn.  “Make me lose it for you.”  Arthur pulled back and drove in deep, and Llewyn howled.  Arthur pumped Llewyn’s cock through the slick fabric, and on his next thrust, Llewyn orgasmed.  His head went back and his back arched, his stomach and chest and neck forming a single arc like a rainbow emerging from the cloud of his skirt.  Arthur saw his throat work, but other than that and the tremors moving through his hips, Llewyn seemed frozen in place.  Inside, though, he was quivering, and the feeling of that and his cum soaking through his underwear a second time pushed Arthur over the edge too.  He fucked Llewyn through his climax with long strokes then lay still over him, braced on his forearms and looking down into Llewyn’s face.

Llewyn’s eyes had closed, but they opened again when his breathing slowed, and he looked back up at Arthur.  Arthur wanted to say “I love you” again, but he remembered Llewyn saying, “I’m not some damn piece of property to lay a fuckin’ claim on,” and he kept quiet.

_Maybe I tell him “I love you” too much,_ Arthur thought.

Arthur pulled out slowly and sat back on the sofa.  Llewyn lifted himself up on his elbows with a groan and reached down to tug his panties back into place.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Arthur looked at his watch, which he was still wearing along with the unbuttoned shirt and the hat.  “11:30.  11:33, actually.”

“I gotta take another shower,” said Llewyn.  He struggled to sit up and started taking off his dress.  He crossed his arms and grasped the skirt in both hands, then lifted the dress up over his head.  He left it inside out on the back of the couch and squirmed out of the backless bra.  Arthur hadn’t seen all that many bras in his lifetime, and this one was strange, just two straps that looped over Llewyn’s shoulders and held the small, padded cups in place over his chest.  Arthur was glad when Llewyn was out of it, but he liked the rest of the outfit, the garter belt and panties and stockings.

“Fuckin’ ruined these stockings,” Llewyn muttered.  He unclipped them and peeled them off.

“Let me see your ankle,” said Arthur.  “You looked like you were getting a blister.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn as Arthur grasped his smooth, waxed calf and lifted it up to rest Llewyn’s foot on his own thigh.  The back of Llewyn’s ankle was redder than before, and a small blister was rising over the Achilles tendon.

“You noticed that?” Llewyn asked.

“Yeah.  Right before you started singing.”  Arthur lifted Llewyn’s leg again and kissed the sore spot, then slid his hands up over the hairless flesh of his leg.  “Go get your shower.  I want to get to bed.”

“Come with me,” said Llewyn as Arthur dropped his leg.  “You need a shower too.”

“I’m just gonna wash up in here,” said Arthur.  He got up and started for the smaller bathroom off the back of the living room, but Llewyn got up too and stumbled after him.

“No, come with me,” he insisted.  He grabbed Arthur’s wrist and dragged him down the hallway toward the master bathroom.

“Llew, I’m too tired to fool around _again_ ,” Arthur said.  He followed Llewyn anyway.  Arthur was half-dressed from the waist up, and Llewyn was half-dressed from the waist down, but when they got to the bathroom, Llewyn finished undressing him.

“I don’t want to fool around,” said Llewyn.  “I want to take a shower together.”

He pulled off what little he was still wearing and got in the shower.  Arthur got in too, not sure what to expect.  Usually Llewyn bathed alone, stalking off to the bathroom at seemingly random times and sometimes even locking the door behind him.  When they did shower together, it was an excuse to have sex.

But when Arthur picked up the soap and rubbed it over Llewyn’s chest, as deliciously smooth as his legs because of the waxing, Llewyn didn’t stop him. He let Arthur wash him, gently and tenderly without an ulterior motive; then Llewyn took the soap from him and pressed his body against Arthur’s chest and rubbed the bar over Arthur’s back with his arms around the larger man.  Llewyn wiped his makeup off with a washcloth himself because Arthur was afraid he’d get soap in Llewyn’s eyes, and he let Arthur wash his hair even though he’d already done it once that day.  As Llewyn stood in front of Arthur, facing away from him, Arthur scrubbed his fingers through Llewyn’s wet hair and over his scalp, and he wondered why Llewyn was being so affectionate.

_Maybe he feels bad for bitching at everyone at the party,_ o _r maybe he’s just still really drunk_ , Arthur thought, even though Llewyn wasn’t acting drunk anymore.

They rinsed away the soap and got out of the shower and dried each other off, all without either of them getting hard.  When they were dry, Llewyn left the wet towels and his underwear on the bathroom floor and went out naked into the hall.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” Arthur heard him growl.  Arthur looked at the mess of clothes and towels on the floor.

“You’re a slob, Llewyn,” he called.

“I’ll pick my shit up tomorrow,” Llewyn yelled back.  “Come to bed.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” said Arthur.  “You won’t clean up tomorrow.”

“No, today’s Christmas,” said Llewyn.  He came back to stand in the bathroom doorway.  He’d put on clean shorts and a t-shirt.

“It’s after midnight,” he said.  “Get in the damn bed so I can give you your present.”

“What?”  Arthur shivered, remembered he was still naked, and pushed past Llewyn to go to the bedroom and put on his robe. Over his shoulder, he argued, “It’s the middle of the night, and you want to open presents _now_?”  Llewyn didn’t follow him into the bedroom, but as he got out his robe and shrugged into it, Arthur raised his voice and went on arguing.  “Is that why you wanted me to shower with you, so you could keep me up until after midnight and get your presents early?”

“I don’t wanna do all the presents now,” Llewyn shouted from another room.  “I just want to give you your big one now, I don’t wanna wait until morning.  You got a big one for me, right?”

Arthur hesitated.  Llewyn’s “big” present was the one in the pocket of Arthur’s jacket, which was still lying by the garage door.

After a minute, Llewyn stuck his tousled head in the doorway of the bedroom and said, “Okay, so you didn’t get me anything big, just go grab something from under the tree.  I know you got me some shit, unless you wrapped a bunch of empty boxes.”

“Of course I got you presents, Llew,” Arthur muttered.

“Then go get one,” Llewyn snapped, “and then get in bed!  I can’t bring yours in here until you’re ready to get it—I didn’t wrap it.”

“And I have to be in bed to get it?” said Arthur.  “Llew, if you expect me to fuck you again, I don’t think I can—”

“Your present,” growled Llewyn, “is not me.  It’s a physical, inanimate object.  And it has nothing to do with sex.  Is that all you think about?”

“Fine,” Arthur muttered, just because he was too tired to keep arguing.  “I’ll go get your present.”

He went into the living room and looked at the Christmas tree and the gifts under it.  There were more packages for Llewyn than for him, but Llewyn had left a few messily-wrapped boxes under the tree as well.  They had forgotten to unplug the tree, so Arthur unplugged it; then he picked up his jacket and went back to the bedroom.

Llewyn was still in another room, probably the guest room where he kept most of his stuff.  Arthur took the box out of his jacket pocket and hung the jacket up in the closet before he got into bed on his side, the right.  He stuck the small, unwrapped box under the blanket, next to the outside of his right thigh.

“Okay, Llewyn, I’m in bed,” Arthur called.  “Are you coming back?”

“I’m coming,” yelled Llewyn.  A moment later, he appeared in the doorway with something in both arms.  It looked like a pile of dark brown terrycloth.

“Is that a new bathrobe?” Arthur asked.

“Yes,” said Llewyn.  “Your old one is a piece of shit.  But that’s not your big present, I wouldn’t get you a fuckin’ bathrobe for your big present.  It’s just to wrap it in.”

“Oh,” said Arthur.  He watched Llewyn come over to the bed and lay the bundle down.  Arthur started to reach for it, but Llewyn kept his hands on top of it, holding the robe in place.

“I don’t know if you’re going to like it,” Llewyn said.  “Or want it.  It might not be something you want.”

“Well, I like the robe,” said Arthur.  “It’s a nice shade of brown.”

“Never mind the robe,” said Llewyn.  “The robe’s more for me, because I’m sick of looking at your old one.  But the other thing—if you don’t like it, it’s okay, but lemme explain it before you decide you don’t.”

“Llew, I won’t be able to decide that I don’t like it, if you don’t let me have it,” Arthur told him.

“All right,” said Llewyn.  He pushed the bundle over to Arthur and got up on the bed after it, with his legs folded under him.  Arthur untucked the new bathrobe from around the object it concealed.  The object was a guitar case.

Arthur looked up at Llewyn, but Llewyn was looking down at the case.

“Well, go on,” he muttered.  “Open it.”

“Oh,” Arthur said again.  He’d thought the case was the gift, and wondered why Llewyn would get him a guitar case when Arthur had sold his guitar more than two years ago.  Arthur snapped open the clasps then lifted the lid on its hinges.  There was a guitar inside.

Arthur glanced up a second time and murmured, “Llew?  You. . . you got me another guitar?”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  He raised his eyes to meet Arthur’s and gave him the intense look Llewyn was so good at.  “Let me explain, before you say you don’t want it.”

Arthur swallowed.  “I’m not gonna say I don’t—”

“I want you to start playing again,” Llewyn said.  “And singing.  You miss it, I know you do.  Don’t you?”

Arthur did miss it; he’d missed it ever since he’d walked out of the pawn shop in the summer of 1961 and left his old guitar behind.  But he’d never told Llewyn that, and he couldn’t figure out how Llewyn knew.

When Arthur nodded, Llewyn nodded too, and he went on, “But I knew you’d never buy it for yourself.”  He lowered his eyes back to the guitar in the case.  “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to wrap it, but it would have taken a fucking lot of paper.  And I bought it yesterday, and it took me all day today to make that fucking rum cake.”

“You bought this yesterday?”  Arthur touched the guitar for the first time.  He felt almost like it would disappear if he put his hands on it.  It was a Framus, German.  Arthur finally picked it up and put it in his lap, on top of the blanket.  He touched the strings.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn, “while you were at work.  Had to take a cab.  I waited ‘til the last minute ‘cos I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it.  I thought you might not want it.”  He looked at Arthur again.  “You do want it?”

“Yeah, of course I—Llew, it’s gorgeous.”

“And it took me that long to get enough money together,” Llewyn said.  “I bought your other stuff first then realized I didn’t have enough.  But since I took those extra gigs last week—”

“That’s why you did that?” Arthur interrupted.  “To buy me a Christmas present?”

“Yeah.”  Llewyn smirked, cocky about it.

“Llewyn, you shouldn’t have—you shouldn’t have spent all your money on me.”  Arthur drew his fingertips over the Framus’s strings.  “And you gave me money for the bills this month too.  Baby, I told you a thousand times, you don’t have to do that—”

“You said yourself, you’re not getting the royalties you used to,” Llewyn countered, “especially not after the assassination.”  He leaned forward a little.  “You said at the office that I’m useless with money.”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said.  “You’re not.  Obviously.  This. . . .”  He drew the guitar a little closer to him, almost hugging it.  It was a beautiful guitar, a sun-kissed color that was almost orange but not so harsh.  But Arthur would have loved the guitar no matter what it looked like, because it came from Llewyn.

“It’s not new,” muttered Llewyn, less cocky now.

“I don’t care,” said Arthur.  “It’s perfect.  It’ll—it’ll sound better, being broken in.”  He strummed it once, then laid it back in the case.  He wanted to play it, but more than that, he wanted Llewyn.  Arthur reached over the case to hug the smaller man.  It was awkward, and the edges of the case dug into his stomach as he leaned over it, but Llewyn hugged him back, briefly.  Then Llewyn extracted himself from Arthur’s long arms and closed the lid of the guitar case.

“I want you to play with me,” Llewyn said.  He was looking down again, at the case.  “And sing with me.  Your voice—you’ve got a good voice.  It’s a waste, you not singing anymore.”

“With you?” asked Arthur.  “You want me to sing with you?  Like. . . perform?”

“Yeah.”  Llewyn raised his eyes.  “Shit, Arthur, I’d love to sing with you again.  There was just the one time, and that was with Jim, and I didn’t know—we didn’t know each other then.  We’ll sound better now.  With a better song.  But we don’t have to do it _for_ anyone, if you don’t want to.  We can do it in the living room.  I just want to hear your voice—singing.”

“You’ll have to give me time to practice,” said Arthur.  “You’re—you’re so _good_ , and it’s been years now.”

“We’ll practice together,” said Llewyn.

Arthur smiled at him.  “Okay.  We can practice together.”  He touched Llewyn again, cupping his hand to the side of the smaller man’s face, and Llewyn smiled back.

Then Arthur thought about Llewyn’s present, and he was the one to pull away.  He fastened the clasps on the guitar case, ran his hands over its surface, then picked it up and leaned over to put it on the floor beside the bed.

“You’re gonna trip over that in the night and bust your ass,” said Llewyn.

Arthur sighed, “No, I’m not.”

“Yeah you are.  You get up to piss like, ten times a night, and you’re always tripping over shit.”

“I’m not going to trip over my Christmas present, Llewyn,” said Arthur.  He turned back to Llewyn and scooped up the new bathrobe.  “I like the robe too.  It really is a nice color.  Matches my hat.”

“That fucking hat,” said Llewyn.  “You get one more night in your old robe, then tomorrow morning I’m tossing it.”

“Okay,” said Arthur.  He draped the new robe over the guitar case then put his hand under the blanket to feel the small, hard box holding Llewyn’s gift.  Llewyn crawled up the bed on his hands and knees, and got in when he reached the top.

“You really like the guitar?” he asked Arthur.

“Yes, Llewyn,” said Arthur.  “I really like it.  I want it, and I want to make music with you.”

Llewyn smiled again, a little, then asked, “Did you bring me a present from the tree?  Or are you gonna make me wait until morning?”

“I brought you something,” said Arthur.  He clenched his fingers over the box and looked down at the bedspread.  It was brown and green.  Llewyn hated it, but not enough to go shopping with Arthur for a new one.

Arthur took a deep breath and said, “Llewyn, I’ll—I’ll take it back as soon as I can.  Thursday, I guess, the store will be open again.”

“Take what back?  The guitar?”  Even without looking at Llewyn, Arthur could imagine the crease that appeared between his eyebrows when he was puzzled.

“No, no, your present,” said Arthur.  “What I got you.  Because you aren’t going to like it.  I’ll get the money back for it and get you something else.  Or—or just give you the money.  Let you buy whatever you want with it.”

“What the hell, you got me something you knew I wasn’t going to like?”  Llewyn sounded like he was chuckling, and Arthur’s misery abruptly returned in full force.

“It’s not that,” Arthur muttered.  “At the time, I thought you’d like it.  But now I know you won’t.”

“The fuck are you talking about?  You liked your present, and I thought you might not.  I’ll like mine,” said Llewyn, but Arthur shook his head.

“This is different.  You—you said—”  Arthur set his jaw and looked away, to his right, so Llewyn wouldn’t see the trembling in it.

Llewyn groaned, “Just give me it, okay?  How’d you put it—I can’t say I don’t like it if you won’t give it to me.”

That was entirely the point, but Arthur decided it was better to just get the whole thing over with.  He pulled his hand out from under the blanket, reached over to Llewyn, and dropped the little box in his lap.

“There,” Arthur said.  “I’ll take it back on Thursday.”

“You think I’m not gonna like it because you didn’t wrap it?  At least I wrapped your guitar in that robe,” griped Llewyn.  Then he took the slick, white cardboard lid off the box and saw the ring case inside.

“Arthur,” he said.  Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I’ll take it back.”

“Like hell you will,” muttered Llewyn.  He flipped the box over so the case slid out, then dropped the box and picked up the case.  “Arthur.  Look at me.”

Arthur opened his eyes and looked at him.  Llewyn handed the case to him.

“Ask me,” said Llewyn.

“What?”

“If you’re proposing to me, you’re gonna fucking do it right,” said Llewyn.  Arthur stared at him.  Llewyn looked back then said, “Or are you _not_ proposing to me?”

“I’m. . . ,” said Arthur.  “We can’t—it won’t be legal, we won’t be married in the—the eyes of the law.  But. . . but I asked around.  Discreetly.  And there are people who—there’s a minister who’ll do it.  Even though we’re both men.  They do things like that now, have ceremonies for. . . for—”

“Arthur,” said Llewyn, “fucking ask me.”

Arthur’s hands were shaking as he opened the case and held it up so Llewyn could see the ring.

“Will you marry me, Llewyn?” he asked.

“You fucking dork,” said Llewyn, “of course I’ll marry you.”  He looked a little like he was going to cry, but Arthur had only seen Llewyn cry once, after his father died.  Llewyn blinked his dark eyes, and then he looked like he usually did.  He held out his left hand, palm down.

“Put it on me,” he said.

Arthur nearly dropped the case as he got the ring out.  The ring was a little big on Llewyn’s finger when Arthur slid it on, but it looked nice.  It was a thick silver band with a row of tiny diamonds set deep in it.  Llewyn’s skin looked very tan in contrast to the silver and Arthur’s own pale hand when he folded it under Llewyn’s and rubbed his thumb across Llewyn’s fingers.

“I’ll get one for you,” said Llewyn.

Arthur said, “You don’t have to,” but Llewyn shook his head.

“You’re not parading around that office without a wedding ring, if we’re really married.”  Llewyn closed his fingers over Arthur’s hand, leaned up, and kissed his mouth, softly.

“I thought you wouldn’t want it,” said Arthur when Llewyn sat back again.  “You said everyone was hung up on the ring, and you weren’t a piece of property.  You told Mrs. Witmer you were pretending to be my wife.  That I lied when I said you were my wife.”

“You did lie,” said Llewyn, “because we aren’t married yet.  But about the ring—I only said that ‘cos I wanted one.  Like the fuckin’ whatsit. . . the fox and the grapes.”  He paused.  “And I was drunk.  I’m still a little drunk, but I want the ring.  You’ll have to cut my fuckin’ finger off if you want to take it back.”

“You really want to marry me?” asked Arthur, to be sure.  “You want to be with me, forever.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “I wanna be with you, forever.”  He let go of Arthur’s hand and slid farther under the covers, lying down.  Arthur leaned over to turn off the lamp on the nightstand, then lay down too, beside Llewyn.  When he put an arm over Llewyn’s side, the smaller man pressed up against his chest.

“I love you, Al,” Llewyn mumbled into Arthur’s old bathrobe.

“I love you too, Llewyn,” said Arthur.

\--

The next morning, Arthur woke up first, and he lay there a while watching Llewyn sleep.  Usually he had to get up for work and didn’t have time for that.  Llewyn was asleep on his side with his face turned toward Arthur, and Arthur pushed his fingers through the dark brown curls of hair just past Llewyn’s temple.  Then he stroked Llewyn’s cheek.  It was still smooth; if Llewyn had just shaved instead of waxed, he’d have had stubble already.

Finally, Arthur leaned down to kiss Llewyn’s forehead then got up.  He tripped over the guitar case and swore under his breath when he stubbed his toe.  He changed into his new bathrobe, picked up the guitar case, and went to the kitchen to start the coffee.

While he waited for Llewyn to wake up, Arthur sat on the couch with his guitar and one of Llewyn’s picks, which he found between the couch cushions.  Llewyn had guitar picks lying all over the house, some in places far more improbable than between the cushions, but Arthur decided he’d get some of his own.  He’d thrown all of his picks away when he sold his old guitar.

Arthur started picking out “Greensleeves” since it was Christmas.  He was badly out of practice.  He stopped and moved Llewyn’s inside-out dress off the back of the couch, where it kept falling over his shoulders.  He tuned the guitar and started playing again.  After a while, he glanced up and saw Llewyn standing in the doorway to the hall, watching him.  Arthur stopped playing.

“Sing something,” said Llewyn.  He was wearing Arthur’s old bathrobe over his shorts and t-shirt.  The robe had been short on Arthur, so it didn’t reach the ground even on Llewyn.  “I was cold,” Llewyn added when he saw Arthur looking at it.

“I don’t want to sing,” said Arthur, “not with you listening.  I need to practice first.”

“Sing,” said Llewyn.

Arthur plucked out six of the same note and sang flatly, “Jin-gle bells.  Jin-gle bells.”

“Fuck you,” said Llewyn, but he was laughing at the same time.  He came and sat down beside Arthur.  “Play ‘Greensleeves’ again.  I’ll sing.”

He sang the Christmas lyrics, “What Child Is This,” and he didn’t make fun of Arthur when Arthur messed up on some of the chords.  Arthur finally sang with him on the refrain, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes:

_This, this is Christ the King_   
_Whom shepherds guard and angels sing_   
_Haste, haste to bring him laud_   
_The babe, the son of Mary_

Llewyn stopped singing after that, and when Arthur quit playing and looked at him, he shrugged and said, “I only know the first verse.  It’s a hard song—you’re doing good.”

“It was always one of my favorites,” said Arthur.  “My mom’s too.  It was the one thing she liked to hear me play.”

“Oh,” said Llewyn.  He looked down at the guitar a minute, then back up at Arthur.  “You really like the guitar?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  He looked at Llewyn’s hand.  “You really like the ring?”

Llewyn put his hands up on either side of Arthur’s face and kissed him and whispered, “I really like the ring.”

\--

To be continued


	11. Chapter 11

**Tuesday, December 31, 1963**

On New Year’s Eve, they went to a party at Jim’s.  He and Jean had bought a house, twice as big as Arthur’s ranch-style home, once they started making enough money to afford it.  The party was the first time Llewyn and Arthur had been there.  They both brought their guitars, and Arthur was wearing his cowboy hat.  Llewyn wore his ring.

Arthur didn’t think anyone would notice that, but after Jim had let them in and shaken their hands, he pulled Arthur aside and whispered in alarm, “Llewyn’s wearing a ring!  Did he get married?”

Arthur shook his head and said, “No, he didn’t get married.”  Jim looked as if he expected Arthur to explain what the ring meant, in that case, but Arthur pretended he didn’t get it and went over to where Llewyn had stopped to talk to someone else.  Jim followed and took their coats.

Jean’s baby had been a boy, and she was carrying it around.  Arthur wondered why she hadn’t found a babysitter, but then he didn’t know much about babies.  It was very young, just a couple months old, so maybe it wasn’t much trouble.  She came over to where Llewyn and Arthur were and asked Arthur if he was singing again.

“A little,” he said.  “I’m still way out of practice, but Llewyn made me bring the guitar.  I’m not going to play it though.”

“Yes you are,” Llewyn said.  “You’re better than you think you are.  We’re going to play something together.”

They _had_ been working on a song together over the past week, but Arthur didn’t think he was ready to play it for anyone.  Llewyn intimidated him, although Arthur wouldn’t tell him so.  When they sang together, even alone in their living room, Arthur flashed back to the studio, singing with Llewyn and Jim and pretending not to notice the bewildered looks Llewyn gave him, as if Llewyn couldn’t quite figure out what this cowboy-hatted loser was doing there.  And anyway, Llewyn was good, better than anyone gave him credit for, and Arthur knew he couldn’t compare.

Jean had said something else while Arthur was thinking all that.  Apparently, she had asked him something, because she was looking at him like she expected an answer.

“I’m sorry, what?” Arthur asked.

“I said, Jim said you sold your guitar.  He thought it was a real shame,” said Jean.  “You bought a new one?”

“Oh.  Yeah, I sold it a couple years ago, but Llew bought me this one for Christmas.”  Arthur looked down at the case, where he’d set it on the hardwood floor by his feet.  It made him feel better, and he smiled, and when he glanced over at Llewyn, Llewyn was smiling too.  Llewyn had smiled a lot the past few days.  He had been in an exceptionally good mood all week, and Arthur had enjoyed it, all the more because he knew it wouldn’t last.  Llewyn would be back to his usual surly self soon enough, probably long before they actually got married, but his smiling so much meant he really did like the ring, and he really did want to marry Arthur.

“You bought him a guitar?” Jean said to Llewyn.  It was the first time she’d spoken to him that night.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “And a new bathrobe.  His old one was falling apart.”  Arthur still hadn’t through his old one away, though, because Llewyn kept wearing it to sleep in.  Neither of them told Jean that.

“What’d he get you?” Jean asked.  Llewyn grinned abruptly, showing his white teeth and crinkling the skin in the corners of his eyes.  Arthur didn’t know if he’d ever seen Llewyn look so happy before.

“A new coat,” Llewyn told her.  “First really warm coat I’ve had in years.  Jim took it, I think he put it in the bedroom.”

“Oh,” said Jean.  She looked suspicious, but then Jim called her to come help him mix the drinks, and she held out the baby to Arthur.

“Here, hold him a second,” she said.  “I’ll be right back.  His name’s James,” she added over her shoulder after Arthur had awkwardly taken the baby and she was walking away.

“I guess they named it after Jim,” said Llewyn.  He watched Arthur readjust the baby to lie cradled in his long arms.  It had blue eyes, and they fixed on Arthur’s face.  Arthur grinned and made noises at it.  The baby smiled.

“You’re good with kids,” said Llewyn.  He sounded surprised.  Arthur shrugged.

“I like kids.  I just don’t really. . . know what to do with them.  But I like them.”

“Good to know,” said Llewyn, “in case you ever knock me up.”

“Llew!” Arthur hissed in a scandalized tone over the baby’s head, as if it could understand.  Llewyn smirked at him.

Jean came back a minute later and took the baby back from Arthur.  She carried it over to show it off to some of the other girls, and Llewyn watched her go.

“She’s being nicer to me,” he observed.  Arthur scowled and picked up his guitar case and went to sit on one of the Berkeys’ sofas.  They had two now, in a living room bigger than Arthur and Llewyn’s living room.  Arthur watched the other guests—a few of them musicians he knew, but most of them people he’d never seen before, important new industry friends of Jim and Jean, probably.  Llewyn came over and sat down next to him.

“Don’t get pissy,” Llewyn muttered.  “She didn’t even want me touching her kid.  You don’t have anything to be jealous about.”

“I’m not jealous,” Arthur muttered back.  He looked at Llewyn to see if he was watching Jean, but Llewyn was looking back at him.  Llewyn hadn’t shaved since waxing for the office party, and the week’s worth of beard darkened and softened his jaw line.  Arthur liked rubbing his fingertips over it; it was soft since the hair had been waxed instead of shaved.

“You look nice tonight,” said Arthur.  “Really handsome.”

“So do you,” said Llewyn.  His eyes moved over Arthur’s face.  “I know I give you shit about the hat, but you look good in it.  It suits you.  You gonna wear it when we start doing shows together?”

“Llew,” Arthur mumbled, “I don’t. . . I don’t know about that.  Us performing together, I mean.”

Llewyn frowned, but then he leaned back on the sofa and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

They’d arrived around ten, and by eleven, the cocktails were gone and everyone had moved on to harder liquor.  Jim said they had champagne, but they were saving it for midnight.  They had the television on.  Most everyone was ignoring Arthur and Llewyn, so Arthur watched the TV and Llewyn drank.

“I’m cold,” Llewyn muttered.  “Can’t they afford some heat on all that fuckin’ money they’re making?”

“Hunh?”  Arthur looked down at him.

“I said, it’s fuckin’ freezing in here.”  Llewyn was burrowed down between two of the couch cushions with his arms around himself.  With his unruly hair, Arthur thought he looked like some kind of small, grumpy winter bird.  The overdressed, overweight, and tipsy wife of Jim and Jean’s manager was sitting on half of each of the right two cushions on the couch, and Llewyn was pressed against Arthur’s side to avoid her.

“Jean at least oughta keep it warmer for the kid,” Llewyn went on.  “Or wrap him up better or something.”  He glared across the room at her, where she was trying to wake the baby up for one of her girlfriends.  When it was finally roused, the baby looked about as cold and as grumpy as Llewyn did.

“Do you want me to go get your coat?” Arthur asked Llewyn.  “Jim said he was putting our coats in the guest room, didn’t he?”

“No, don’t get up.”  Llewyn’s dark eyes flicked back to Arthur’s face.  “Don’t leave me alone.”

“I’ll be right back,” Arthur said, but Llewyn shook his head so hard, a curl of his hair bounced at the side of his head.  He was already pretty tipsy himself.

“No, someone might talk to me,” he muttered.  He leaned even closer in to Arthur’s side.  “Just warm me up.”

Arthur looked around and saw that no one was paying attention to them.  He put his arm up on the back of the couch, behind Llewyn, then thought, _What the hell does it matter what anyone thinks,_ and wrapped his arm around Llewyn’s shoulders instead.  Llewyn rested his head against Arthur’s shoulder.

“You’re always so warm,” Llewyn said.  Arthur smiled and bent his arm at the elbow to reach up and smooth the curl of dark brown hair back into place.

When he looked around again, Jean was watching them from across the room while her girlfriend cooed at the now fussy baby.  Jean saw Arthur watching her watching, but she didn’t look away.  Arthur thought about disentangling himself from Llewyn, but then Jean met his gaze, and he changed his mind.  Instead, he lifted his glass of rum and Coke and took a long drink, his eyes riveted on hers over the glass as he hugged Llewyn closer to him.

“Hey, gimme some of that,” Llewyn muttered, reaching for the glass.  Arthur finally looked away from Jean and down at Llewyn.

“What happened to yours?”

“I had bourbon,” said Llewyn.  “Straight.  But it’s gone.”  He closed his small hand around the glass, over Arthur’s, and pulled it to his lips.

“Fine, here.”  Arthur watched him drink, watched the way Llewyn’s lips looked curled against the rim of glass.  “You’re already blitzed, Llew, and you said you’d drive home.”

“You can drive,” said Llewyn.

“Are you warmer now?” Arthur asked him.

“A little.”  Llewyn let him take the glass back, but it was nearly empty anyway.

“Good,” said Arthur.  He wanted to kiss Llewyn, to taste the last of his drink on those pretty lips and in the hot cavern of his mouth.  Arthur leaned forward to set the glass down on the floor, behind his guitar case.

“Hey, let’s have some music,” Jean said, before Arthur had straightened up.  When he looked at her again, she was looking at Jim but speaking loud enough for everyone to hear.  The buzzing din of conversation fell away somewhat as a few people said “yeah.”

“Records?” Jim asked her, and she shook her head.

“No—wasn’t Llewyn going to play something?”  She looked back over at Llewyn on the couch, and so did a bunch of other people.  Arthur had slipped his arm away from Llewyn seconds before.  Jean added, “With Al.  Sorry—with Arthur.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  His voice was slightly slurred, and slightly aggressive.  “Yeah, we were.”

Arthur shook his head.  “Not me.  You go ahead, Llewyn.”  He knew from experience that Llewyn could play drunk, way drunker than he was now.

“You and me both,” said Llewyn, “Al.”  He bent over to get his guitar out of its case.  Arthur sighed and got his out too.

“Didn’t know you still played anymore, Cody,” someone said to Arthur.  His face was familiar, but Arthur couldn’t place it.

“He didn’t,” said Jean, “but he’s with Llewyn now.”  Arthur flushed, although everyone else would probably understand “with” in the sense of a musical partnership.  Jean smiled at them both and asked, “Have you started recording yet?”

“No,” said Arthur.  He hated her.

“No,” said Llewyn at the same time.  “We’re writing right now.  And practicing—getting used to playing together again.”  He had his guitar on his lap, and he turned his head to look up at Arthur through his eyelashes.  “Feeling each other out.”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  “Feeling each other out.”

Llewyn smiled at him, a secret little smile that barely shifted the perfect lips surrounded by scruffy beard; then he turned back to his guitar.

They played a song Llewyn had started writing but they’d finished together.  Arthur still didn’t think he was good enough, but he tried to forget that and just enjoy being with Llewyn, singing, blending his deep voice with Llewyn’s lighter one.  And by the second verse, Arthur _had_ forgotten everything but the man beside him as they sang.  Arthur fell silent and stilled his fingers over the strings of his new guitar and let Llewyn sing on alone so Arthur could watch him.

Llewyn’s eyes lifted back to Arthur’s, that little line of puzzlement forming momentarily between his brows until Arthur strummed his strings hard and sang with him again.  Then Llewyn smiled, not small and secret this time but broad, and Arthur smiled too, even though his smile was goofy and dorky, because he was singing with the man he loved.

When they finished, everyone but Jean applauded them, and her hands were occupied with the baby.  No one seemed to have understood the way they looked at each other, except maybe Jim, who fixed on them eyes the color of his son’s, with the same sort of open curiosity the baby had shown upon being deposited into a stranger’s arms.  Jim could be disarmingly naïve, far less so than his wife, but Arthur supposed that Jim had known Llewyn pretty well, once upon a time, and that Jim had known _him_ fairly well too.

Then Jean handed the baby to Jim and asked him to put it to bed, and by the time he came back, he had apparently forgotten about Llewyn and Arthur.  He and Jean sang together, of course, absorbing the other guests’ attention so that Arthur could safely put his guitar away.  Llewyn held his on his lap a while longer but eventually put it back in its case too.  Arthur rested his arm along the back of the sofa until Llewyn leaned into the crook of his shoulder again; then Arthur put the arm around Llewyn and held him.  He kept his arm there even when Jim started passing out glasses of champagne near midnight.  Jim gave them that same curious look when he gave them their drinks, but he didn’t say anything.

The TV was still going.  It was tuned to NBC and Ben Grauer broadcasting from Times Square.

“Goodbye ’63,” Grauer said, and one of Jim’s guests muttered, “Good riddance.”  Grauer continued, “Hello ’64!”

In Jim and Jean’s living room, they counted down as the ball fell in Times Square.  Llewyn had been to Times Square at New Year’s before, but Arthur hadn’t.  Looking at the crowd on the TV, he was glad they weren’t there now.  He would rather be sitting on the couch with Llewyn warm and drunk beside him, even if the couch was in the Berkeys’ living room.

“The ball’s moving, moving. . . almost at the bottom of the pole,” narrated Grauer.  “There it is!  1964!”

\--

**Wednesday, January 1, 1964**

People in the living room turned to each other and kissed.  Jim and Jean kissed, and Arthur caught Llewyn’s chin in his hand.  He tilted it up and bent his head and kissed Llewyn deeply.

“Mmnh!” said Llewyn, and Arthur could feel the vibration of his vocal cords in his mouth as Arthur tasted champagne on his tongue.  Arthur let Llewyn go after a few seconds, and the smaller man sat back, breathless.

“Fuck,” Llewyn whispered.  He picked up his glass off the floor and drained it.  Arthur didn’t think anyone had seen them kiss, but by the time he tipped back his own glass and swallowed the contents, he didn’t care if they had.  Around them, people had started singing.  Llewyn sang too after he swallowed, then so did Arthur:

_For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne,  
We’ll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne._

When they’d finished singing, _The Tonight Show_ had come on, and Johnny Carson was talking to Rudy Vallee.  Arthur watched them and drank—another glass of champagne when Jim came by with the bottle, then bourbon when he came by with that—until he had to piss too badly to wait any longer.  When he stood up, the room spun.

“Shit,” he muttered, and Llewyn laughed.

“You’re fuckin’ blitzed, yourself,” he taunted.

“Fuck off, Llew,” Arthur said.  He stood very still until he was sure he could walk without stumbling.  “You gonna be all right by yourself a second?”

“Yeah sure, no one’s gonna talk to me _now_.  But the question is, are _you_ gonna be all right?”  Llewyn leaned back on the couch, both arms along the back and knees spread apart.  The manager and his wife had left right after midnight, and Llewyn had the couch to himself now.

“Yeah, I’m coming right back,” said Arthur.

“You can barely stand up,” retorted Llewyn.  “I’d better come with you and help.”  He got to his feet, wobbling.

“I don’t need your help to go piss, Llew,” Arthur said.  Llewyn grabbed his arm and nearly made him lose his precarious balance.

“You sure?  Big as your cock is, maybe I’d better come hold it for you,” suggested Llewyn.  The look on his face was entirely serious, as far as Arthur could tell.

“No, sit down.”  Arthur pushed him back down to sit on the couch, almost falling after him.  “If we both go, people’ll know.”

“Know what?”  Llewyn was looking at him that way again, up through his eyelashes the way he looked at Arthur when Llewyn went down on him.  Thinking about that made Arthur start to get hard, and he wondered if he’d be able to piss at all.

“People’ll know that we, that we’re—that we’re together,” Arthur mumbled.

“I don’t care,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll tell ‘em right now.”

“No you won’t, just stay here.”  Arthur stumbled off to the bathroom alone, although he was afraid Llewyn might follow him anyway.  Llewyn didn’t, and when Arthur got back, Llewyn already had another glass of liquor—Arthur didn’t know what it was, and he still didn’t know after he’d sat down and Llewyn had handed him the glass and he’d taken a swallow.

“That’s it for me,” Arthur said when he handed it back.  “Can’t drink anymore, I gotta drive us home.”

“Like hell you’re driving,” mumbled Llewyn.  He drained the glass.  “You’ll kill us both.  We gotta stay here.”

“No, we can’t stay here.”  Arthur looked over at Jean.  “I couldn’t ask to—”

“Don’t have to.  _I’ll_ ask,” Llewyn interrupted him.  “I’m used to asking if I can stay over.  Asked _you,_ didn’t I?”  He set the glass down, got up, and knocked the glass over when he bumped it with his foot.  Arthur leaned forward to stop him, but the room spun again, and he ended up sitting back and watching Llewyn make his way over to Jim.  Llewyn’s hips swayed more in his tight slacks than they had in the dress a week before.  Jim spoke to Llewyn and looked over at Arthur, and then Llewyn came sauntering back.

“He said we can stay,” Llewyn told Arthur, “in the guest room.  Our coats are already there.”  He flopped back down on the couch.

“So’s everyone else’s,” said Arthur.

Since he didn’t have to drive, he kept drinking, and by around two-thirty the party was breaking up.  Jim must have told Jean that they were staying, because she scowled at Arthur then refused to look at him again, but at least she didn’t make a scene about it.  After a while, Arthur got up and tried to help by giving people their coats as they left, but he kept getting the coats mixed up, so finally Jim told him to go get Llewyn off the couch because it didn’t look like he could walk on his own.

“There’s just the one bed,” Jim said.  “I guess one of you could sleep on the couch out here.”

Arthur started laughing but managed to get out, “We don’t mind sh-sharing,” before he went to get Llewyn up on his feet.  They collected their guitars and staggered back to the bedroom together.

“The bathroom’s attached,” Jim said as he gathered up the last couple coats besides theirs.  “Try to be quiet if you get up first in the morning—Jean’ll want to sleep in.  She’s already gone to bed.”

“Fuckin’ Jean,” muttered Llewyn.  “Or not.  Bet you’re not gettin’ any now that the kid’s here, right?”

“Shut up, Llew,” said Arthur.  “Sorry,” he told Jim over Llewyn’s head.  Jim laughed.

“I’m used to Llewyn.  You don’t have to apologize for him,” Jim said.

“Yeah I do.  He’s kinda my responsibility now,” said Arthur.  He looked down at Llewyn and smiled.

“Fuckin’ straight,” said Llewyn.

When Jim went out with the coats, Arthur shut the door.  Llewyn staggered over to the bed, turned around, and fell down on it, landing on his back on top of their coats.

“Happy fuckin’ New Year,” he said.  “Get over here, I wanna fuck you.”

“Ugh, Llew, we can’t,” Arthur protested.  “Not in Jim’s house.”

“Why the hell not.”  Llewyn had unfastened his pants and was trying to work them down past his hips while sprawled on the bed.  “Someone needs to get laid in this house.  You know she’s not putting out.”

“For Chrissakes, quit talking about Jean,” muttered Arthur.  He went over to the bed and looked down at Llewyn on it, the triangle of his abdomen exposed by his opened pants.  The hair was growing back there too.

“You’re still jealous,” said Llewyn.  “Well you know what’ll show her?  Me fucking you in her house.”  He reached up a hand to grasp Arthur’s shirt and tug at it until he got the front untucked; then he shoved his hand under it to grope Arthur roughly.  Arthur’s hips bucked forward all on their own, and he started getting hard.  Llewyn raked his low-lidded eyes up Arthur’s body then fixed them on his face.  He sucked his lower lip in between his teeth then released it, slowly.

“Baby, you’re the one I want,” he mumbled.  “Just you.”

Arthur had just enough presence of mind to get their coats out of the way first.  He stripped off their pants and knelt on the bed over Llewyn, but then he realized they didn’t have any lube.

“Look in the bathroom,” said Llewyn.  “They have a baby, they gotta have, like. . . Vaseline or baby oil or some shit.”

“Not in the guest bathroom,” Arthur argued, but he stumbled over to it and rummaged around until he found some lotion and decided it would be good enough.  He straddled Llewyn’s narrow hips and stroked his cock with the lotion while Llewyn fingered him roughly.

“C’mon Al,” Llewyn growled after a minute, “ride me, cowboy.”

Arthur sank down on him and started fucking himself on Llewyn’s cock.  Llewyn groaned and closed his eyes.

“Oh yeah baby, just like that,” he breathed.  “So good.”

“Yeah,” Arthur hissed.  Llewyn began flicking his hips up, and Arthur tilted his head back and panted as he felt Llewyn’s cock thrusting inside him.  Llewyn reached up and fumbled to undo the buttons on Arthur’s shirt.  When he got it open, he spread his hands over the larger man’s chest and squeezed his pecs.

Llewyn whispered, “You’re fuckin’ beautiful, Arthur.”

“No,” Arthur gasped as they moved together.  “‘M not, I’m—nngh!”  Llewyn pinched his nipples, hard, to shut him up.

“Fuckin’ beautiful,” Llewyn said again.  He dropped his hands to Arthur’s hip bones, then grasped his cock and started jerking him off.  Arthur grunted and tensed around him and throbbed in his hand.  When he lowered his head to look at Llewyn, the smaller man under him was looking up, lip back between his teeth and lashes lowered to curtain his brown eyes.  Arthur pushed Llewyn’s shirt up to his chest and rubbed his hands over Llewyn’s body.

“You’re so small,” Arthur mumbled.  Between the alcohol and the mind-numbing pleasure of Llewyn’s hand and dick working him over, Arthur wasn’t very coherent.  He splayed his large hands over Llewyn’s chest, and they covered it.  Arthur rode Llewyn harder until he came, shooting on Llewyn’s stomach while Llewyn growled filthy things between his clenched teeth.  When Arthur’s orgasm made him clamp down around Llewyn’s cock, Llewyn grunted and tensed, and a second later he came too.

“Haahh,” Llewyn breathed.  He dropped his head back on the bed and closed his eyes.  When he fumbled his hands up Arthur’s body and tugged at his shoulders, Arthur lay down on him, and Llewyn held him.  They fell asleep like that.

When Arthur woke up, he was cold and still drunk.  Llewyn’s cock had come out of him when it softened, and they were stuck together with both their cum.  They were still wearing their shirts, but Arthur’s hat was lying on the floor.

“Fuck,” Arthur mumbled.  He peeled himself off of Llewyn and staggered to the bathroom and came back with a towel he’d dunked in the sink.  Llewyn woke up when Arthur started rubbing him with the cold towel.

“ _Shit_ , Al, what the fuck,” he mumbled.  Arthur wiped himself off too then threw the towel on the floor and got back into bed.

He pulled the blankets up over them, curled himself around Llewyn, and said, “Go back to sleep.”

“Al,” Llewyn mumbled, already half asleep again, “I was dreaming.  Dreamed we had a kid.  D’ya want kids?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  He had one arm draped over Llewyn’s back, and he ran his hand up and down the smaller man’s spine through his shirt.  “Always have.”

“Shit,” said Llewyn.  Arthur tried to figure out what he’d said wrong, why Llewyn would have that reaction.  _He doesn’t like kids?_ Arthur wondered fuzzily.  _Doesn’t. . . oh.  Fuck._

“I mean, I used to,” Arthur amended.  “Back when I thought I’d marry a woman.”

“Shit,” said Llewyn again.

“I don’t anymore,” said Arthur.  “Want kids, I mean, not think I’ll marry a woman.  I mean. . . I know I won’t marry a woman either, but I don’t—don’t want. . . .  Shit,” he said himself.

“I’m sorry,” Llewyn mumbled against his chest.

“Sorry for what?”  Arthur had been about to apologize himself with the vague idea that what he said had probably hurt Llewyn’s feelings, and that Llewyn might get pissed about it.  Instead, Llewyn sounded sad.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you that—can’t give you kids,” said Llewyn.

“It’s okay,” said Arthur.  “I don’t want—”

“Yes you do, you don’t stop wanting kids just ‘cos you decide you like fucking guys,” muttered Llewyn.  “I’m sorry.  If I could get pregnant, I’d do it for you.”

“Christ, Llew,” Arthur groaned with a weak chuckle.  “That’s fuckin’ kinky.”

“I’m sorry I f-fucked your life up,” Llewyn said.  His voice broke, and Arthur wondered if he was crying.  Maybe he was still that drunk.

“Aw, Llew, baby,” Arthur said, “don’t.”  He hauled Llewyn’s body up a bit and lifted his head with both hands.  Llewyn _was_ crying, a little.

“Llewyn, I love you,” Arthur told him.  He tried to think of an eloquent way to say how _much_ he loved Llewyn, but all he could come up with was, “I love you a fucking lot.  If I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t have married a woman.  If I didn’t have you, I’d be alone ‘cos. . . ‘cos you’re all I want.  I wanted you the first time I saw you.  Even though you thought I was crazy.”

Llewyn sniffled.  “You _are_ crazy.  For wanting me.  And in general.”

Arthur pulled Llewyn down against him and nuzzled aside the curls of hair over his ear to whisper, “You didn’t fuck my life up, you got me to start living again.”

“You’re a fuckin’ sap, Arthur,” mumbled Llewyn.  “And I fuckin’ love you.”

\--

When Llewyn woke up, it was past noon.  His head throbbed and his mouth felt fuzzy, and he didn’t know where he was.  All of which were pretty familiar sensations, except he hadn’t felt the last one in a long time.  For a second, he panicked, but then he realized Arthur was beside him, snoring loudly through his large nose, and Llewyn decided everything was okay.

He sat up, winced, and scrubbed his hand over his beard.  Strange room, strange bed, Arthur.

_Jim’s_ , he thought.  _This is Jim’s house.  We crashed here._   A little more of it came back.  _We fucked, **then** we crashed here.  Jean’s gonna have to wash sheets with our cum all over them._   Llewyn grinned.

There was something else too, he remembered being upset about something.

_Did we have another fight?_   No, because Arthur had been nice to him, he’d said. . . something.  Oh well.  If Arthur wasn’t pissed at him, the rest of it didn’t matter.

Llewyn looked down at Arthur and nudged his shoulder to no effect.  He leaned down and kissed Arthur’s nose, winced again at the aching pressure in his head, then rolled out of bed.  There was a towel on the floor, and he kicked it out of the way as he stumbled to the bathroom to start the shower.

Llewyn noticed he was still wearing his shirt as he got in the shower, and he managed to strip it off and toss it out into the bathroom before it got too wet.  The hot water woke him up and the steam dulled the throb of his head.  He worked water through his hair with his fingers and washed his face, then stopped to catch a mouthful of water and rinse his mouth.  He swished it around and spat, realized he had to piss, and, in a fit of inspiration, did that too.  Jean wouldn’t know he’d done it, but there was no way she wouldn’t know what they’d done to her sheets, and that was vindication enough.

When Llewyn went back into the bedroom, buttoning up his shirt, Arthur was still asleep.  Llewyn pulled his pants on and went to the kitchen to look for something to eat.  Jim was there washing the party glasses in the sink, and he looked over his shoulder when Llewyn came in.

“Morning,” said Llewyn.

“It’s afternoon,” said Jim.  “It’s after one.  Arthur still asleep?”

“Yeah.”  Llewyn raked a hand through his damp hair.  “You said to be quiet this morning.”  Jim didn’t say anything and turned back to the sink.  Llewyn thought about asking if he could make some coffee, then changed his mind and rummaged through the refrigerator instead.  As he was popping the cap off a bottle of Coke using a metal opener mounted on the wall, Jim finished the dishes and dried his hands.

“Jean’s out with the baby,” Jim said.

“Yeah?”  Llewyn took a swig of Coke.

“We gotta talk,” Jim said.

“Oh.”  Llewyn swallowed.  “Okay.”  Jim gestured at the round kitchen table, and Llewyn sat down and set his Coke bottle on the center of the linen placemat in front of him.  Jim sat in the chair across from him and fingered the edge of his own placemat.  Llewyn wondered if they had to talk about Jean.

Finally, when Jim didn’t say anything, Llewyn asked, “What do we gotta talk about?”

“Arthur,” Jim said.  “You and Arthur.  We—we heard you last night.  Heard you, um. . . .”

“Fucking?” Llewyn prompted, nearly giddy with relief that Jim didn’t want to talk about Jean.  Llewyn’s headache was fading, and now he remembered something else from last night, sprawling on the sofa and telling Arthur he didn’t care who knew about them.  Even sober, Llewyn didn’t care if Jim knew.  In fact, he _wanted_ Jim to know.

“Yeah,” muttered Jim.  “We heard you.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  He looked at Jim and waited, wondering what else there was to say about it.  Jim was looking down at the table, but he finally lifted his eyes back to Llewyn’s face, then dropped them to his hand.

“Uh, the ring you’re wearing.  I thought you’d gotten married, but Arthur said no.”

“Oh—no.”  Llewyn spread his fingers and glanced at his ring before looking at Jim again.  “Engaged.  We’re not married yet.”  When Llewyn said “engaged,” Jim frowned a little, but a second after Llewyn said “married,” Jim’s face relaxed into amazement.

“Wait—you mean. . . you and—and Arthur?” he stammered.

“Yeah. . . ?”  Llewyn studied him then said, “You thought I was engaged to some girl and. . . and cheating on her with him?”

Jim’s cheeks flushed above his beard, but he met Llewyn’s eyes again without flinching.  “Yeah.  That’s what I thought.”

“Oh,” said Llewyn, and reminded himself that he hadn’t hung around Jim much for a long, long time.  “I. . . see where you might think that.  That it might be something I would do.”

Jim nodded, cautiously.

“But I wouldn’t.  Not now.”  Llewyn curled his fingers under his hand, making a fist with his ring still upturned.  He looked at it, then looked at Jim again.  “I wouldn’t cheat on Arthur.  I haven’t been with anyone else in—”  He had to stop and add it up in his head.  “Three years, just about.”

“Three. . . what the fuck, Llewyn!” Jim gasped.  “You’ve—this has been going on three _years_?  Why didn’t you—”  He stopped then too, because of course he knew why Llewyn hadn’t told him.  There was a whole slew of reasons why Llewyn wouldn’t tell him.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “I left my guitar with him while I was in the Merchant Marines.  When I got back, I went to pick up my guitar and. . . .”  He shrugged.  “And I stayed.”

Jim’s blue eyes looked huge with surprise.  “You were gone a year, weren’t you?  You mean you never—the whole time—”

Llewyn shrugged again and said, “No.”  Jim still looked comically surprised, and Llewyn was starting to enjoy himself, so he added, “I’d fallen in love.”

“You fell in love,” said Jim.  “ _You_.  With _Al Cody_ —Arthur.  With Arthur.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.

“That’s—that’s some crazy shit,” said Jim.  “Some crazy, wonderful shit.”

_He’s happy,_ Llewyn realized.  _He’s happy for me.  For us.  I’ll be damned._

“But how can you get married?” Jim was asking.  “Men can’t marry each other.”

“Arthur knows somebody,” said Llewyn, “a minister.  I mean, it’ll be under the table, not like the church _condones_ it.  And it won’t be, you know, legal.  But that’s not what matters.”

“No,” said Jim, “I guess it isn’t.”  He smiled, and Llewyn smiled too.  Then Jim leaned forward a little and asked in a hushed tone, “What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?  Being with Arthur?”

“Yeah—well I mean, not Arthur specifically, but with another man?”  Jim looked embarrassed and intrigued and mischievous all at once, like a kid showing his friends a porn mag he’d found.

Llewyn shrugged and told him, “It’s different.  But good.  I like it.”  He paused.  “Arthur’s cock is huge.”  Jim blushed and sat back in his chair.

After a minute, he asked, “So who’s the woman?”

“What?”  Llewyn squinted at him.

“Who’s the woman, you or him?”

“Oh.  It doesn’t—it’s not like that,” said Llewyn.

Jim smirked.  “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“There’s not a man and a woman,” Llewyn grumbled.  “We’re both men.  Sometimes I fuck him, sometimes he fucks me.  Last night, I fucked him, and the first time, I fucked him.”

“But. . . ?”  Jim was still smirking.

“But I call him my wife, and he likes it,” said Arthur.  Llewyn and Jim both jumped and turned.  Arthur was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Shut the fuck up, Al,” Llewyn muttered.  He thought Arthur might tell Jim about Llewyn wearing a dress to his office Christmas party, but he didn’t.  Instead, Arthur came to the table and sat down in the chair between them.  He’d taken a shower, and his hair was wet.  He was wearing his cowboy hat over it.

“You do like it,” Arthur argued.  Llewyn glanced at him, afraid Arthur might be pissed he’d told Jim about them, but Arthur was smirking like Jim had been.

“Fuck you,” said Llewyn.  He smiled.

“There’s been enough of that in this house already,” said Jim, and they all laughed.  Llewyn was amazed at this, at all of it.

_This is promising,_ thought Llewyn.  Then out of nowhere came the memory of last night, him and Arthur looking at each other over their guitars and singing together.  That was promising too.  As much as Llewyn loved Arthur, as much as Arthur made him whole, there had still been something missing.

_Al Cody_ , thought Llewyn.  _That part of Arthur was gone for a while.  The guitar is bringing him back, the guitar and Jim._   At one time, Al had been going to kill Arthur off, change his name legally and leave the core of who he was behind to live with nothing but his dreams.  And when that didn’t work out, Arthur had tried to kill off Al.  He’d left behind his country name and his music and Jim and everything else that represented his dreams, instead.

_Except for me,_ Llewyn realized, _me and that damn fool hat._   But then Llewyn had left a lot behind too, and maybe all his trouble had started at the very first of that, when Jean came between Llewyn and Jim, and they’d both let her do it.

Now, though, they were all finding each other again, and that made Llewyn happy.

_I’m happy,_ he thought with mild amazement.

“Can I come to the wedding?” Jim asked.  Llewyn and Arthur looked at him, then at each other.

“It ain’t gonna be a big deal,” Arthur said.  “Not even a ceremony really, the minister’s just gonna. . . I dunno, say the words I guess.  And no one else’ll be there—I don’t talk to my family anymore.”

“Neither do I,” said Llewyn.

“I still want to come,” said Jim.  When they both looked at him again, he added, “Just me, by myself.  I won’t even tell Jean about it if you don’t want me to.”

“You can tell her,” Llewyn finally said, “and you can come.  Just don’t bring her.”  He looked at Arthur, who nodded.

“Okay,” said Jim.  “Just let me know the date.”

“It’ll be awhile,” said Llewyn.  “I don’t even have Arthur’s ring yet.”

Arthur started to say, “I told you, you don’t have to—” but he stopped at the look Llewyn gave him.  Jim laughed again and got up from his chair.

“You’d better get out of here before Jean comes back,” he told them.  “She’s not too happy with you.  Either of you.”

“See you Friday night?” Llewyn asked on their way out.  “Arthur said he might sing with me.”

“I will,” said Arthur.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll come out,” said Jim.  “We’re taking the week off anyway.”  He shook their hands before they left.

It was snowing lightly as Llewyn drove them home.  In the passenger seat, Arthur was quiet for awhile; then he said, “Llew?”

“Yeah?”

“That year you were gone to sea. . . you really didn’t sleep with anyone else?”

Llewyn looked away from the road a second to stare at him.  “How long were you listening to us?  How much did you hear?”

“That was the first thing I heard,” said Arthur, “then I listened to the rest.  But is it true?  You waited for me?”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Arthur demanded.  “I told you I waited, even though I thought you weren’t coming back.  But you let me think—I thought you’d been with someone else.  Maybe a lot of other people.”

“I don’t know,” Llewyn muttered.  “I didn’t want you to know how much you got to me, I guess.”

“You didn’t want me to know you already loved me.”

“I guess not,” said Llewyn.  They were quiet again until he asked, “Are you really gonna sing with me Friday night?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  “You’ll have to introduce me as Al Cody though.  No one’s gonna know who Arthur Milgrum is.”

“No one’s gonna know who Al Cody is either,” Llewyn pointed out, grinning.

“Fuck you,” said Arthur.

“Not until we get home.”

“Okay, so maybe they won’t know who I am,” Arthur went on, “but if I’m gonna be singing again, I want to use the other name for it.  My real name just. . . doesn’t work for that.”

Llewyn agreed, “Okay, I’ll call you Al.  You’re not thinking about changing it again, are you?  Legally?”

“Nah.  If you’re willing to become Mrs. Arthur Milgrum, it’s a good enough name for me.”

“Fuck you, Al,” said Llewyn.

“Not until we get home,” said Arthur.  He leaned over and kissed Llewyn’s cheek.

As he turned the car into their neighborhood, Llewyn said, “I think 1964 is gonna be a good year.”

“Yeah,” Arthur said.  “I think so too.”

\--

To be continued


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I couldn’t write a song to save my life, the one in this chapter was written by Alex Chilton and is titled “Every Day as We Grow Closer.”

**Sunday, February 9, 1964**

Arthur had never really liked Valentine’s Day.  He’d gotten his first girlfriend on Valentine’s Day when he was twelve, after he finally got up the courage to give his crush a box of candy and ask her out.  He had his first breakup that afternoon, when another boy gave her candy she liked better and she dumped Arthur.  February the fourteenth kind of lost all its charm after that.

Arthur wasn’t really thinking about the upcoming holiday when, the Sunday before the fourteenth, Llewyn interrupted _Bonanza_ to ask if Arthur minded him playing that Friday night.

“Hunh?  No, ‘course I don’t mind.  Why would I?” Arthur asked as he turned away from the television to look at Llewyn.  Normally, Arthur didn’t like missing _Bonanza_ , but that week’s episode was focused on Adam, and Arthur didn’t care much for him.  He wasn’t funny like Hoss or Little Joe, and he took himself too seriously, always wearing black and acting like he knew better than everyone else.  Arthur thought that if Al Cody were a real cowboy, _he_ wouldn’t wear all black, and he certainly wouldn’t be that arrogant.

Llewyn was sitting on the couch next to Arthur because they’d watched Ed Sullivan on CBS the hour before.  Neither of them normally watched it, but Llewyn had wanted to see the Beatles’ first live appearance on American TV.  He wasn’t very impressed.

“What the fuck’s the big deal?” he’d complained. “Buncha insipid noodling.  Bet they don’t last.”  At nine, Arthur got up and switched the TV over to NBC for _Bonanza,_ and about twenty minutes in, Llewyn asked about Friday night.

“Well, uh, it’s Valentine’s Day,” Llewyn said when Arthur asked why he should mind Llewyn performing.  “I didn’t know if you. . . you know, had anything planned.”

“Oh.  No.”  Arthur felt a little guilty that he _didn’t_ have any plans for Llewyn to cancel.

“Okay,” said Llewyn.  “Uh, you gonna come with me?”

“Sure,” said Arthur.  He usually did on weekends.

“Okay,” said Llewyn.  He smiled at Arthur, and Arthur leaned over and kissed him.  The kiss ended up being long and deep, and Llewyn slid over into Arthur’s arms.

“You’re not gonna watch your show?” Llewyn muttered when Arthur dropped his mouth down to the side of Llewyn’s neck and began to bite at it.

“It ain’t worth watching when Hoss ain’t in it,” Arthur mumbled against Llewyn’s skin.

\--

**Friday, February 14, 1964**

Arthur was tired after work on Friday, and he might have stayed home if Llewyn hadn’t asked those odd questions last Sunday.  But they made Arthur think Llewyn wanted him to come, and Arthur still felt a little guilty for not planning anything special for Valentine’s Day.  He’d given Llewyn a card that morning, but that was all.  Llewyn hadn’t given him anything.

_I don’t really mind coming along,_ Arthur thought as Llewyn drove them back into the city.  _I’ve hardly seen him all day, and if I’d stayed home, we wouldn’t be spending any time together at all today._   Llewyn had been doing a lot of shows lately, at three or four different venues, so he had been gone almost every night and some afternoons for the past month.  Arthur had gotten kind of irritated over Llewyn never being home, even though he didn’t worry much anymore about Llewyn cheating on him.

Llewyn was antsy—he sometimes got that way before performing, even as long as he’d been doing it, and maybe he was a little concerned about the Beatles after all.  He squirmed and fidgeted in the driver’s seat, and glanced over at Arthur from time to time.  Arthur smiled at him and put his hand on Llewyn’s thigh.  Llewyn bit his lip and dropped his hand down over Arthur’s, squeezed it, then pushed it away.

“Don’t get me worked up _now_ ,” he muttered.

“Just by putting my hand on your leg?” chuckled Arthur.  “Christ, Llew.”

They were running late, and Llewyn had to start playing as soon as they got to Pappi’s.  He went up front with his guitar and tuned up, while Arthur decided where to sit.  He normally sat in the back, out of the way of Llewyn and everybody else, but tonight there was one table still open in front, nearly _right_ in front of Llewyn, and suddenly Arthur didn’t want anyone else sitting that close to him.

Arthur sat at the table and stretched his long legs out under it after checking that his feet weren’t going to be sticking out where they could trip somebody.  Llewyn glanced up from his tuning, saw Arthur sitting there, and blinked; then he smiled.  It was faint and quick, barely a twitch of the perfectly formed lips almost obscured by his scruffy beard.  But even after the smile was gone, Llewyn’s dark eyes stayed fixed on Arthur another moment before he finished his tuning and raised his head and leaned over to the microphone.

Mostly, Llewyn played his usual stuff.  Arthur had heard it all before, and most nights when he came to hear Llewyn play, he didn’t really listen, not consciously.  He would watch Llewyn and hear his voice—which could be so annoying when Llewyn was bitching about something yet so beautiful when he sang—but he wouldn’t really listen.  But tonight, with only a few feet between them, Arthur listened again.  Llewyn didn’t look at him, but then he didn’t really look at _anybody_ except his guitar, and Arthur was used to that.

Arthur listened all the same, imagining he was just part of the audience like everybody else and that he was hearing the songs, if not for the first time (most everyone there was a regular, after all), not for the hundredth time either.  Pretending he didn’t know the small, rumpled man hunched on the stool in a wrinkled grey suit, looking like a New York City pigeon.  Trying to understand who Llewyn was just from the way he played and the words he sang.

It was hard, because Arthur couldn’t really remember what not knowing Llewyn Davis was like.  They had met three years ago, and Arthur remembered what a beautiful mess Llewyn had been that day, and how every time he glanced at Arthur—even to stare at him like Arthur was a crazy man—Arthur had felt a smile tugging at the corners of his wide mouth.  But then, he _still_ got that goofy, first-crush feeling sometimes when Llewyn looked at him.  Unlike his real first crush, Llewyn hadn’t dumped him (unless you counted his year in the Merchant Marines, which Arthur didn’t), and Arthur had mostly forgotten what it felt like not being in love.

Nevertheless, he tried his best to understand Llewyn only through his playing.  The Llewyn Davis up there under the light, which was itself somehow grey even though it _was_ light, seemed quietly passionate, a little bewildered at life and what it had done to him, maybe a bit more optimistic than the real Llewyn was.  He still seemed beautiful to Arthur, even when Arthur tried to forget that they loved each other.

Llewyn was doing two sets that night.  He’d gotten marginally more popular over the past couple years, Beatles or no Beatles, and he could hold a crowd all by himself.  He was still after Al Cody to play with him some, and Al Cody was almost ready, but until then, Llewyn was doing just fine on his own.  He never talked too much between songs, because he said it was pretentious and no one had come to hear him talk, as if everything he did for an audience _wasn’t_ all pretention and Llewyn being the arrogant little shit he was.  But tonight, he talked before the last song of his first set.

“Uh, I’m gonna do something new,” he said.  He wasn’t looking at Arthur; instead, he was staring so intently to Arthur’s left, Arthur glanced in that direction to see who was there.  There wasn’t anyone, just a gap between tables where Llewyn directed his voice.

Llewyn went on, “It took me a while to work this out, because it’s. . . about real life, and that’s always hard.”  He kind of laughed in a self-deprecating way, the way he did when he thought he was being clever and expected people to laugh along with him.  Arthur smiled.  Llewyn said, “It’s taken me three years to write this song, and most of that time, I didn’t _know_ I was writing it.  But, uh, it’s very important to me, and. . . yeah.  Here it is.”

He looked down and started to play again; then he started to sing: “I feel the warmth inside me, I see a light to guide me, straight to wherever it is I'm bound.  I have been empty so long, so many times been so wrong, I was so lost waiting to be found.”

Llewyn looked down at his guitar, brows drawing closer together in concentration, as he went on, “Every day as we grow closer, I find myself a little more, I open up another door, and learn to give and learn to live.  Travelling the brand new highway, doing things finally my way, and now at last my life feels full.”

Arthur’s heart had started beating faster when Llewyn sang “as we grow closer,” and it pounded when Llewyn lifted his head and looked straight at Arthur.  Arthur stared back, wide-eyed, and Llewyn sang, unmistakably to him: “Every day seems brighter, all of my thoughts seem lighter, I see happiness when I look at the world.  Every day as we grow closer, I find myself a little more. . . .”

After Llewyn finished the song, he murmured that he’d be back soon and left his guitar up on the stool while he went to the bar.  He didn’t look at Arthur as he went by, but he came back a couple minutes later with two drinks.

“Llew—” Arthur began, not sure what exactly he meant to say, but Llewyn shook his head and took a long swig of his cocktail.  He shuddered and shook his head again.

“Damn,” he muttered.  “Strong.  I better not have more than one.”  Arthur sipped at his own drink.  It _was_ strong, but he didn’t really care since he wasn’t driving.

“Llew,” Arthur tried a second time, and he plowed onward when Llewyn tried to silence him.  “Why you wanted me to come out here tonight, was it because—that song?”  He stumbled over the words, feeling suddenly awkward and fearful that maybe he had misread the whole thing and Llewyn _hadn’t_ written a song about being in love with him.

But Llewyn said, “Yeah.  That’s part of it.”  He took another long drink from his glass and looked down at it on the table.  “I’ve never written a song _for_ anyone before.  It’s hard.”

“It was beautiful, Llewyn,” Arthur whispered.  “Baby, I—thank you.  I don’t—I should’ve—”  He was _still_ stumbling, and he felt like he would tear up if he didn’t get ahold of himself.

“Never mind, tell me later,” said Llewyn.  “I gotta get back up there, but first you gotta see the other reason I wanted to be sure you came with me.”  He leaned back in his chair, arching his back and lifting his ass off the seat to form a straight line from his chest down to his thighs.  Llewyn looked from side to side as if to see if anyone else was paying attention to him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Arthur hissed, but he realized what Llewyn was doing when the smaller man tugged the right side of his pants, the side toward Arthur, down a few inches.  Stretched over Llewyn’s prominent hip bone was black satin with matching lace trim along the top.  Arthur swallowed hard and mumbled, “Fuck, Llew.  You’re—you’re wearing panties?”

“New ones,” Llewyn pointed out, “that you haven’t seen before.”  He sat back down in his chair and finished his drink before he stood up.  “I gotta go.”

Arthur gawked up at him and protested, “Llewyn!  You can’t just—just show me that and then _leave_.”

“I’ve got a show to do,” Llewyn said haughtily.  “You’ll just have to control yourself until I’m finished.”  He sauntered back up to his guitar, and Arthur slumped down in his chair to watch Llewyn sing.  This time, Arthur had difficulty focusing on the music; the black satin panties under Llewyn’s ill-fitting grey pants absorbed most of his thoughts.

Llewyn seemed aware of his distraction, and this time, his eyes drifted to Arthur again and again as he sang.  Llewyn’s lashes drooped lower, and when he was just playing and not singing, he kept licking and biting his lips.  Once, when their eyes met, Llewyn pursed his pretty lips briefly, miming a kiss at Arthur.  Arthur gritted his teeth and ground the heel of his hand against his groin under the table.  No one else noticed any of it.

When Llewyn was finally done with his second set, he took his time packing up the guitar, until the next singer got up there.  Then Llewyn carried the guitar case over to Arthur’s table and set it on an empty chair.  He took off his coat and draped it over the case.

“Be a dear and take these out to the car,” Llewyn said.  Arthur hadn’t finished the last of his drink; Llewyn eyed the glass, swept it up, and drained it.

“Yeah, and what’re _you_ gonna do?” Arthur muttered.

Llewyn set the glass down again, put the palm of his hand flat against the table, and leaned down with his weight on it as he whispered, “You take that out to the car and wait five minutes, then leave your coat out there and come back in through the alley.  Meet me in the bathroom.”

“Llewyn—” Arthur protested, but Llewyn had already turned away and was going over to the bar.

Arthur didn’t attract any attention as he got to his feet and trudged out with Llewyn’s coat and guitar case.  He put them in the backseat and then stood outside the car and looked at his watch until five minutes had passed.  Then Arthur took off his coat and left it with Llewyn’s stuff, locked up the car, and went through the alley to the back door of the bar.  The men’s room, just inside the back door, was tiny with two stalls and a sink and urinal.  It wasn’t as dirty as it could have been, but it wasn’t clean either, and it was so dark, Arthur could hardly see well enough to tell that Llewyn wasn’t there.

“Dammit, Llew,” Arthur muttered.  He resigned himself to waiting, but then he realized he had to piss anyway.  While he was standing at the urinal, he heard one of the stall doors creak.  Arthur hadn’t realized anyone was in there, but when he finished and turned around, Llewyn was leaning against the wall, watching him.

“Hey cowboy,” Llewyn all but purred.  He had his eyelids held so low, Arthur could barely see the glitter of his eyes beneath them in the dim light.  “Need some help with that?”

Arthur blushed and started getting hard again at the same time.  He tried his damnedest to be a respectable man, and respectable men didn’t hook up with their male lovers in public bathrooms.  But Llewyn had gone to the trouble of planning out the encounter in meticulous detail, and he’d written Arthur a love song, and he was wearing black satin panties under his clothes.

Arthur Milgrum might be a respectable man, he decided, but Al Cody certainly didn’t have to be.

\--

“I might,” Al told Llewyn.  He hadn’t buckled his belt yet, and he left it dangling open as he looked Llewyn up and down.  Like how he’d listened to Llewyn sing, Al looked at Llewyn as if for the first time—the way he’d wanted to look at Llewyn in the studio the day they met.  Lewdly, undressing the disheveled smaller man with his eyes, thinking about all the things Al could do to him.

“How much?” Al asked after he’d raked his gaze down to Llewyn’s feet then back up to his face.  Al wasn’t sure that was proper hooker etiquette—did you just ask up front like that?—or even if Llewyn was pretending to be one.  Maybe he wasn’t, because he blinked and his brows lifted enough to widen his eyes.  Maybe he’d just wanted to play let’s-have-anonymous-sex-in-the-bathroom, and Al worried he’d screwed it all up.

But then Llewyn’s eyelashes dropped again, and he smiled and said, “First ride’s free, stud.”  He sashayed over to Al and grabbed the loose ends of his belt and tugged him toward the stalls.  Llewyn had come out of the farthest one, the one up against the wall, and the door still stood open.  He pulled Al over to it and pushed him inside, backing Al in then coming in after him and latching the door behind them.

There was hardly room for both of them in there between the commode and the door.  Al could feel the rim of the bowl up against his calves, and he tried not to think about how dirty it might be.  Llewyn’s back was pressed against the stall door, and he tilted his head to look up at Al from under his lashes.  His lips, still smiling, parted to show his even, white teeth, and he flicked his tongue up to lick his upper lip.

“So what’re you looking for?” Llewyn whispered.

“Uh,” said Al.  Again, lack of experience at being a john left him unsure of what to say.  Llewyn bit his lower lip and waited.  When Al faltered, Llewyn helped him along.

He murmured, “I know who you are, and I know Al Cody doesn’t gotta pay to get laid.  Big, strong, handsome man like yourself can get pussy if he wants it.”  Al’s face burned, and it was all he could do to keep quiet and not spoil it all by explaining how wrong Llewyn was.  Llewyn draped his arms over Al’s shoulders and lifted himself off the door so he could put his lips up near Al’s ear to keep talking: “So if you’re coming to me, you must want something special—not just a blow job, ‘cos any girl could give you _that_.  Instead, you wanna fuck a _man_ , don’t you?”

Al swallowed hard, fought through his embarrassment, and turned his head to catch Llewyn’s mouth.  He kissed Llewyn roughly and reached down with both hands to grope his ass.

“Yeah,” he growled into Llewyn’s mouth when their lips broke apart and Al’s were left burning from Llewyn’s beard.  “I wanna fuck a man, but I never expected to come in here and find Llewyn Davis putting out.”

Llewyn drew in a sharp breath and let it out with a moan.  Al pushed him against the door and shoved his hands down the back of Llewyn’s pants, over the silky underwear.

“You go out there and sing so pretty for all those people,” Al breathed, “then come in here and offer up your tight little ass to whoever’ll pay for the privilege.”  He put his mouth to the side of Llewyn’s neck to kiss and bite at it.  Llewyn leaned his head back, breath hissing through his teeth, and ground his crotch against Al’s thigh.  Al started unbuttoning Llewyn’s shirt, working from the bottom up, until his fingers brushed more satin over the smaller man’s chest.  Al drew back and yanked the shirt open to see the small black bra Llewyn was wearing.  It wasn’t padded and he hadn’t stuffed it, so it lay flat over his pecs with his stiffened nipples peaking the filmy, see-through fabric.

“Fuck, Llew,” Al whispered, forgetting the role he was playing for a moment.  He thumbed Llewyn’s small brown nipples through the bra, and Llewyn closed his eyes and moaned again.  Al dropped his hands to Llewyn’s pants and fumbled to get them open while he bent his head, put his mouth over the right nipple, and sucked it through the fabric.  Llewyn yelped and writhed.  Al moved to the other nipple until he’d soaked the left cup of the bra through with his spit, then started kissing and sucking at Llewyn’s upper chest and neck so hard, he left Llewyn’s skin flushed with bite marks and hickies.  He finally got Llewyn’s pants open too and rubbed the straining bulge in the front of his panties with one hand.  Al’s palm skidded over the slick fabric, and Llewyn whimpered.

Al moved his hands over Llewyn’s hips and back to his ass, squeezing as he asked, “You gonna let me have this?”

“Yeah,” Llewyn hissed.  His bruised, wet chest was heaving as he spoke.  He squirmed in between Al’s arms to pull out of his hands and turned around so that his back was to Al.  Llewyn leaned against the stall door, face turned to one side and bearded cheek against the painted metal.  He thrust his ass out and muttered, “Got cleaned out and lubed up before I left home tonight—I knew you were gonna be here, and I knew I wanted this.  You don’t have to get me ready, just put it in, Al Cody.”

“Damn,” Al swore, thinking, _No wonder he was squirming in the car._   He couldn’t get his pants down fast enough, especially when Llewyn reached back with both hands to pull the back of his panties aside with one and spread his ass with the other.

“C’mon cowboy,” Llewyn taunted, “hurry up and ride me.”

Al wrapped a hand around the shaft of his cock to aim until he got the head in.  Llewyn grunted and flexed around him, then relaxed.  Al let go of his cock, grabbed Llewyn’s hips instead, and thrust in quick and hard.  Llewyn was slick with lube, and Al sank in all the way with little resistance.

Llewyn groaned, “ _Fuck!_ ” and let go of his ass, flattening his palms to the surface of the stall door instead as Al started to fuck him.  Llewyn rocked his hips back to meet every thrust and hissed, “Yeah, Al, just like that!”

Al slid his hands up Llewyn’s stomach to rub and pinch his nipples through the bra, and he returned his mouth to the smaller man’s neck.  He kissed Llewyn’s neck and nuzzled his jaw through his beard and bit at his ear.

“You knew I’d be here, hunh?” he whispered as he thrust into Llewyn.  “Knew you could get me to fuck you, didja?”

“I’ve seen how you look at me,” Llewyn moaned against the door.  “Saw how you watched me in the studio.”  Al shuddered, not sure if Llewyn was talking about three years ago or some fictional encounter.  Llewyn liked the shudder though, and he moved his hips in circles to work Al’s cock inside him.

“Saw you undressing me with your eyes, and I wanted to put out for you,” Llewyn kept muttering.  “Finally I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to have you!”

“So you—nngh—put on black panties like a little whore and waited until you got me alone,” Al groaned.  He ran his left hand up the side of Llewyn’s neck, closed his fingers around the back of it, and used the side of his palm to tilt the smaller man’s head.  Llewyn rocked his head back, eyes closed and lips parted with little breaths escaping each time Al thrust into him.  Al sucked another bruise onto his neck, just under his jaw, and growled, “You dirty cock slut.”

Al surprised himself by saying it.  He didn’t talk like that anyway, and certainly not to the man he loved more than life itself.  But Llewyn moaned, and his muscles fluttered around Al’s cock.

“Yeah,” he panted, “fuck, Al, I’m your slut.  Use me, make me your whore!”

All apprehension vanished, and Al did just that: he started fucking Llewyn harder with longer strokes, pulling nearly all the way out before slamming back into him so hard, they rattled the metal door on its hinges.  Llewyn gave a strangled moan, then growled, “Harder, dammit, _fuck_ me!”  Al did it, and Llewyn writhed and keened.

“This what you want?” Al said through gritted teeth.  His upper body kept Llewyn pinned to the door, and the smaller man’s feet left the ground each time Al pushed up into him.  On the next thrust, Al didn’t pull back again, and he held Llewyn up there on the door, impaled and squirming like an insect on a pin.

Llewyn bucked against the door and wailed, “ _Yes!_   Please, Al! _”_

“My filthy little—nngh!—slut,” Al gasped as he started thrusting again.  That time, Llewyn was the one to shudder.  From the way he was tensing and releasing his muscles around Al’s cock, Al thought he might be close to coming, but then he heard a sound that made them both freeze and go utterly silent: the sustained creaking whine of the bathroom door being opened.  Al’s cock twitched and Llewyn trembled as sticky-sounding footsteps made their way from the door to the urinal, and a zipper rasped open.

Al’s first thought was, _Shit, someone’s in here and I’m fucking a man—I’m fucking **Llewyn** and whoever that is, he’s just a couple yards away, and if either of us makes a sound, he’ll **know**._   But in the next second, that thought went from terrifying to titillating, and Al realized he didn’t want to stop.  He didn’t _have_ to stop.

He shifted his hand from Llewyn’s jaw to cover his mouth and thrust two fingers in as the newcomer started urinating.  Startled, Llewyn inhaled with a hiss through his nose; then his eyes went wide when Al began fucking him again, this time with short, shallow strokes that didn’t rattle the door but did jab the head of Al’s cock directly into Llewyn’s prostate.  Llewyn’s breath came harder and faster, and he bit down on Al’s fingers, though not hard enough to hurt.  His tongue thrashed under them until saliva spilled from one corner of his mouth.  Otherwise, he held still, but Al felt his muscles fluttering again, this time a continuous flutter that didn’t stop.  He knew that meant Llewyn was close, and suddenly Al was determined to push Llewyn over the edge before the stranger left the bathroom.

Al dropped his right hand to Llewyn’s groin and started squeezing his erection firmly through his panties to the rhythm of Al’s thrusts.  Llewyn’s breath caught and held; he pressed his eyes shut and shook.  As the man at the urinal finished up, Al drove in hard and pulled on Llewyn’s cock at the same time.  Llewyn bit down again, hard enough to hurt and probably leave marks this time, and his body quaked.  He contracted around Al’s cock, and Al felt cum soak through Llewyn’s panties as he orgasmed.  Llewyn didn’t make a sound save for the rapid breaths he’d started drawing again, and Al could clearly hear the other man zipping up his pants and walking to the door.  Al stopped and held motionless as the bathroom door opened; then as soon as it squealed shut, he pushed Llewyn up against the stall door and fucked him for all he was worth.  Unresisting, Llewyn groaned around his fingers and leaned on the door until Al climaxed inside him after half a minute of frenzied thrusting.

\--

And then Al was Arthur Milgrum again, wondering, _What the hell did we just do?_   He slipped his fingers from Llewyn’s mouth and trailed them over his wet chin, and Llewyn’s ragged breath calmed.

“Fuck,” Llewyn hissed.  He grabbed Arthur’s hand and held it while he shoved his other hand into his shirt pocket and fumbled there for a second, bracing himself on the door with his shoulder.  Then he pushed a ring onto the fourth finger of the hand he held and whispered, “Marry me, Al Cody.  Arthur Milgrum.  Whatever, just marry me.”

“Llew,” Arthur breathed.  He couldn’t see the ring very well in the poor light, but what it looked like didn’t much matter anyway.  “Where did—”

“I bought it, obviously.  What, you think I stole it?”  Llewyn gave a faint chuckle of exasperation and looked at Arthur over his shoulder.  All the shows and Llewyn being gone so much lately suddenly made sense, and Arthur felt a rush of guilt on top of his elation.

“Llew,” he whispered again and leaned against Llewyn to kiss him.  Pressed up against the stall door again, Llewyn purred a “mmm” sound into Arthur’s mouth, apparently quite content to be trapped by Arthur’s body covering his, and each other’s rings on their fingers.

Eventually, reality set in, and Arthur pulled his mouth back from Llewyn’s lips, and his cock out of Llewyn’s ass.  Llewyn hissed and squirmed.

“You’re a mess,” Arthur observed.  Even in what little light there was, Llewyn’s face shone with sweat and spit, and of course there was all the cum.  “Gotta clean you up before I let you back into my car.”

“Fuck you, Al,” Llewyn said cheerfully.

\--

**Tuesday, February 18, 1964**

They got married exactly three years after the day they met.

Arthur took the day off work, and they went to see the minister he’d found who did some things under the table, things like marrying two men.  They didn’t need witnesses, since it wasn’t legal anyway, but the minister said they could have guests if they wanted.  Arthur didn’t have anyone to invite except for Jim, but one of Llewyn’s friends came too, a black guy he’d met at one of the cafes he’d been playing to get the money for Arthur’s ring.

“This is Titus,” Llewyn introduced him to the others.  “And Titus, this is Arthur and Jim.”

“Hi,” said Titus.  He’d been looking at Jim like he thought maybe that was who Llewyn was marrying, but then he turned and looked up at Arthur instead and smiled broadly.  He seemed nice.

“Dawn couldn’t make it?” Llewyn asked Titus.  Arthur stared at Llewyn.

“Nah, she couldn’t get off work,” Titus told him.  “Sends her love though.”  Llewyn nodded.

When Titus and Jim started chatting—Titus was having modest success singing rhythm and blues, but James Brown had captured his imagination, and he wanted to find out what Jim thought about the budding genre of funk—Arthur asked Llewyn, “Who’s Dawn?”

“Titus’s girlfriend,” said Llewyn.  “Or fiancée, maybe.  Why?”

Arthur relaxed and said, “Just wondering.  Too bad she couldn’t make it.”

The minister gave them the standard vows, except they both said “wedded husband” instead of “wife.”  Afterwards, Arthur leaned down and kissed Llewyn and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Llewyn murmured against his lips, “husband.”

Titus had to go to a gig right after the ceremony, such that it was, but Jim bought Arthur and Llewyn dinner at a nice restaurant.  Arthur thought that was their wedding gift until Jim said, over dessert, that he and Jean would finance the album Llewyn wanted them to do together.

“Jean agreed to that?” Llewyn blurted out.

Jim shrugged.  “She said you guys had better pay us back, then she said that you probably wouldn’t be able to, because there’s no way you’re gonna make any money on it.”

“ _That_ sounds more like Jean,” said Llewyn, but Arthur glared.

“We’ll pay you back,” he grumbled, then added apologetically, “And thanks.  Really.  I know Llew wants this.”

“Don’t you?” asked Jim with a little smile.  “Al Cody’s not ready for a comeback yet?”

“I think Al Cody never really left,” said Llewyn, “considering that he wore his cowboy hat to his own wedding.”

“You love this hat,” said Arthur, and he smiled.  To Jim, he replied, “I do want it, I want to make something with Llewyn.  I just ain’t had any luck with albums.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck,” Llewyn said.  He leaned over to snag the edge of Arthur’s dessert plate, then started eating the rest of the unfinished chocolate cake on it.  Around a mouthful of cake, he mumbled, “Anyway, we don’t need luck.  It’ll sell.  And we can each put some solo stuff on it too.”

“Okay,” said Arthur, thinking of the song Llewyn had written about him.  “Jim, we’ll let you know when we’re ready to get started.  In a few weeks, maybe.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “Thank you, Jim.  I mean it.”

\--

As Arthur drove them home, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” came on the radio.  Llewyn started singing along, under his breath: “Oh please, say to me you’ll let me be your man.”

“I thought you didn’t like the Beatles,” said Arthur.

“I don’t,” said Llewyn, “but they’re damn catchy.  Just listen to this shit though, it’s the same like, four or five lines over and over.  Why are they so fuckin’ popular?”

“I guess this is gonna be our song now,” said Arthur.

“Like hell.”  Llewyn glared at the radio.  “ _Dammit,_ Al, why’d you have to go and say that?  Now you’ve done it.  Our song is ‘I Wanna Hold Your Fuckin’ Hand.’  Great.”

Arthur laughed, reached over, and took Llewyn’s hand.

“I think it’s pretty appropriate,” he said.

“You’re a dork, Al Cody,” Llewyn replied, but he stopped complaining, and he held Arthur’s hand all the way home.

\--

To be continued


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was never happy with the abrupt ending to this chapter/episode/whatever it is, so I actually wrote something new and added a good thousand words to it. At least it feels a little less random now.

**Saturday, March 28, 1964**

The night before Easter, Arthur turned on the Saturday night movie because it sounded interesting, and he’d missed it in theaters.  It was called _Wild River_ and set in Tennessee in the thirties.  Arthur didn’t know much about the South and figured this was a good chance to learn something about what it had been like down there, back when he was busy being born and raised in Jersey.

(Most of what Arthur knew beyond the New York City area came from the movies, and he’d never been further west than the Mississippi.  In fact, he’d never been further west than Chicago, which Llewyn had pointed out the last time they argued over Arthur wearing his cowboy hat and boots everywhere he went, besides work and church.  Arthur hadn’t spoken to Llewyn for the rest of that day, until Llewyn apologized so that Arthur would come to bed with him instead of sleeping in the guest room.)

Now, the night before Easter, Arthur was sprawled on his usual end of the sofa, the right, and Llewyn had curled up with his back resting against the arm on the left side and his legs folded up under him like an Indian yogi.  He was reading the newspaper and eating a handful of jelly beans.

“You hear about that earthquake yesterday?” Llewyn mumbled around the jelly beans, without looking up from his paper.

“Llew, I’m trying to watch this,” Arthur murmured.  Llewyn grumbled something and made a lot of noise turning the pages of the newspaper.  Arthur turned to glare at him, but his scowl faded when he looked at Llewyn’s face.  Llewyn looked more hurt than annoyed, and Arthur decided his husband was more important than the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Arthur said, “Sorry, baby.  What about the earthquake?”  Llewyn flipped down the top of the newspaper to scowl at Arthur over it.  Arthur smiled at him.  Llewyn rolled his eyes then smiled back, a little.

“In Alaska,” he said.  “Killed a bunch of people.”

“That’s awful,” said Arthur, “especially right before Easter.”

Llewyn nodded and dropped the newspaper on the floor.  He held out the last jellybean.  It was black, Arthur’s favorite, and Llewyn hated the black ones.  Arthur leaned over and ate it out of Llewyn’s hand.

“You’re missing your movie,” Llewyn observed.  Arthur shrugged.  He looked at Llewyn’s face, frowned, and reached up to brush his fingertips over Llewyn’s bearded cheek.

“You’re still going to church with me tomorrow morning, right?” Arthur asked.

Llewyn retorted, “Said I would, didn’t I?” and gave him a suspicious look.  Arthur thought about pointing out that Llewyn saying he’d do something was nowhere near the same thing as him actually doing it.  However, Arthur decided he’d better pick his battles.

“Yeah.  But uh. . . think you could shave first?” Arthur asked.

“ _Shave_?” Llewyn scoffed.  “Why?”

“Well, your beard’s getting pretty scruffy.”

Llewyn glared at him.  “Thought you liked me scruffy.”

Arthur groaned, “Of course I do, Llew.  I just meant, it’s scruffy looking for _church_.  And you know how nice I think your skin is after you’ve shaved,” he wheedled.

Llewyn made a huffing noise and muttered, “I’m out of shaving cream.”

“You could use your electric razor,” Arthur suggested, but Llewyn shook his head.

“Battery’s dead.”

“You can use _my_ electric razor,” said Arthur, “and my shaving cream, for that matter.”

“Dammit, Al,” grumbled Llewyn.  “If I did that, I’d smell like _you_.”

Arthur frowned.  “You don’t like how I smell?”

“Ugh, it’s not _that_.  It’s. . . .”  Llewyn floundered, and Arthur found himself unconsciously turning his mouth down and his eyebrows up a little more so that he looked wounded.  He was surprised at himself, but he probably shouldn’t be.  Llewyn was so good at being manipulative, it was to be expected that some of it would rub off on Arthur.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Llewyn muttered.  “I do like how you smell, I just meant that it’d be weird for both of us to smell that way, is all.  And I’m tired, shaving all this is gonna be a lot of work.”  He scrubbed a hand over his beard.  Arthur wondered just what Llewyn had to be tired from, especially on a Saturday night when they hadn’t left the house all day, but he didn’t ask because a counterargument for that excuse had just occurred to him.

“I’ll do it for you,” he told Llewyn.

“You’ll do what for me?”

“Shave you.”

“What?”  The little crease appeared between Llewyn’s eyebrows, the one that showed up when he was puzzled in general, or just bewildered by Arthur.

“I’ll shave your beard for you,” Arthur said.  Llewyn kept staring at him, and Arthur was mildly amazed when the smaller man’s cheeks darkened, just a little.

“Fine, _fine,_ ” Llewyn sighed.  He tossed the newspaper on the ground and got up, muttering, “Come on then.”  Arthur went over to the television and turned it off, then followed Llewyn back to their bathroom.

Llewyn’s electric razor, the same older one he’d carried around in his bag years before, was buried in the bottom of a drawer.  Arthur dug it out first and plugged it in to recharge so it would be ready the next time Llewyn needed it.

“Hurry up,” grumbled Llewyn.

Arthur got out his own electric razor and his shaving cream, then looked around for Llewyn’s safety razor.  When he asked where it had gotten to, Llewyn just shrugged, so Arthur found his own and put a new blade in it.

“The hell are you gonna do, shave my whole damn body?” Llewyn griped.

Arthur didn’t bother answering.  He laid everything out on the counter to the right of the sink and turned on the hot water tap so the water could be warming up.  Then he grabbed Llewyn around the waist, lifted him up, and set his ass on the left side of the counter.

“Fuck!” Llewyn grasped, scrabbling for a hold on Arthur’s shoulders until he was safely seated.  His cheeks had flushed again.  He liked it when Arthur picked him up or did other things that reminded him Arthur was bigger and stronger than he was.

“This way I don’t have to bend down,” said Arthur, and Llewyn sulked again.

“You calling me short, Al Cody?  We can’t all walk around on stilts like you do.”

Arthur smiled and leaned forward to touch his mouth to Llewyn’s.  With Llewyn on the counter, they were about the same height, perfect for kissing.  Llewyn brushed his lips over Arthur’s then sat back.

“Hurry up,” he said again.

Arthur turned off the warm running water and picked up his electric razor, but then he stopped and told Llewyn, “You’d better take your shirt off.  It’s gonna get hair all over it.”

Llewyn sighed and stripped off the t-shirt he slept in.  Arthur looked at his chest, mostly smooth with just a little hair on it. He thought Llewyn’s chest was perfect: small enough so that Arthur could span it with his hands; in proportion to the rest of Llewyn so that it didn’t look scrawny; pecs slightly defined but not too prominent; dark brown nipples that stiffened with the slightest attention.

“You gonna shave my chest too?” Llewyn grumbled.

“I may,” Arthur replied as haughtily as he could manage.  “Now hold still.”

He turned the razor on, and Llewyn winced at its raucous buzzing, but he sat obediently as Arthur grasped his chin and began to drag the razor down Llewyn’s left cheek.  He shaved off the swath of hair running from Llewyn’s sideburn down to his jaw, then swiped the razor over the beard Llewyn had grown along his jawline, using quick strokes.  Llewyn had shaped his beard a couple days ago, so Arthur didn’t bother using the electric razor on his cheeks; the sharper safety razor would be enough.

Llewyn fidgeted as Arthur did the other cheek, then tilted Llewyn’s chin up and stroked the razor under his jaws and chin.  The short hairs fell to dust Llewyn’s bare chest and lap.  It had been extraordinarily cold the past couple days, and Llewyn wore pajama pants to bed instead of shorts (or nothing).  Now the soft, faded fabric was sprinkled with hair, and Llewyn scowled down at it.

“Gonna have to wash my pants now,” he said.

“What?” Arthur brayed over the sound of the razor.

“ _Gonna have to wash my pants!_ ” shouted Llewyn.

“They’ll brush off!” Arthur yelled back.  He shaved Llewyn’s upper lip and the thin strips of hair that ran from his mustache down into the beard.  Last of all, Arthur did his chin.  Llewyn had some silver-grey hairs there, below his lower lip where his beard was sparser, and some more mixed into the dark curls on top of his head.  He’d had a few grey hairs when Arthur met him, but others had grown in since then.

 _He’s getting close to forty,_ Arthur thought, _and I’m not far behind._   He looked into Llewyn’s eyes—almost-sleepy eyes with long lashes and coffee-brown irises—and felt a little surge of excitement.  Not sexual excitement, just plain old joy.  Arthur didn’t know why the thought of them getting older made him feel that way, unless it was just because they were getting older _together_.

Arthur switched off the razor and plugged it in under Llewyn’s to recharge, because Arthur always recharged his razor after using it.  He brushed the shorn hairs off Llewyn’s face and his chest with one hand.  The hair tumbled to the vinyl flooring.  Llewyn grumbled and shook out his pants, which made the floor even hairier.

When Arthur picked up the straight razor, Llewyn complained, “Why’re you doing it _twice_?”

“The electric got the worst of it off,” said Arthur, “but it’s still not close enough.  If I’m taking the time to shave you, I’m gonna do it right.”

Llewyn pointed out, “You know, _your_ scruff doesn’t look too great either.  I hope _you’re_ gonna shave.”  He reached up to tug on Arthur’s goatee rather vindictively.

“I will,” said Arthur.  “Unlike you, I get up early enough to have time to do it in the morning.”  He turned on the faucet and ran the razor under the warm water, then shut off the water and set the razor down so he could squirt some of his shaving cream into his hand.  Arthur used the Noxzema brand because he liked the way it tingled and the distinctive, slightly medicinal smell of it.  The scent of eucalyptus and camphor blended into the steam from the sink as Arthur massaged the shaving cream into Llewyn’s cheeks and chin.  Llewyn’s pretty eyes dropped closed, and he tilted his head slightly into Arthur’s hand, wherever Arthur was touching him.  Arthur didn’t think Llewyn knew he was doing it.

Arthur picked up the safety razor and began to shave Llewyn’s face a second time.  He started on the left again but shaved over Llewyn’s whole cheek with slow, careful strokes.  Llewyn tensed at first—maybe he’d never been shaved by someone else before, and maybe he was afraid Arthur would cut him—but then he relaxed a little at a time.  Arthur worked from the outside in, stopping halfway to rinse the razor, and when he had finished the left side of Llewyn’s face, he looked it over to be sure he hadn’t missed any spots.

Llewyn was quiet now.  He didn’t complain about how slowly Arthur went, and when Arthur glanced up into his eyes, Llewyn was watching his face with half-closed eyes, like a contented cat’s.

Arthur moved to the right side of Llewyn’s face and repeated the process.  He wanted to touch Llewyn’s smooth skin, to run his fingers over his cheekbones and down the creases on each side of his nose, but Arthur made himself wait.  The shaving cream might get too stiff and dry if he got distracted before finishing.  He kept rinsing the blade after every few strokes as he leaned Llewyn’s head back and carefully shaved up his neck and throat.  Across the underside of his jaws.  Over the edge of his blocky chin.  Each swipe revealed another few inches of Llewyn’s skin, not so tan as it would be in warmer weather but still slightly darkened from working in the yard last weekend.

Llewyn’s eyes opened a bit wider when Arthur moved up and shaved his lip.  The corner of Llewyn’s mouth twitched, and he shook, trying not to laugh.

“Does that tickle?” Arthur teased, and Llewyn snorted with the suppressed laughter.

“Fuckin’ dork,” he mumbled.

Arthur rinsed the blade and scraped it down the skin on each side of Llewyn’s mouth, then rinsed it again.  He finished with a few last strokes over Llewyn’s chin.  As he gave the razor a final rinse, Llewyn reached up to feel his face.  Arthur swatted his hand away.

“Not yet, I need to rinse you off,” Arthur scolded.  He dampened a washcloth in the sink and wrung it out.  Llewyn sighed and dropped his shoulders dramatically but allowed Arthur to grasp his chin again.  Arthur rubbed the washcloth over Llewyn’s left cheek gently so it wouldn’t sting, rinsed it, wiped Llewyn’s right cheek.  The rest of the shaving cream ran down the drain along with the few short bits of hair that clung to Llewyn’s face.

Arthur wiped off Llewyn’s throat too; then he dropped the washcloth on the counter and pressed his fingertips to either side of Llewyn’s neck.  Llewyn’s skin felt damp and warm as Arthur ran his fingers up behind the smaller man’s jaws, just under his ears.

Llewyn shivered and asked, “How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” said Arthur.  He kissed Llewyn’s lips, but when Llewyn parted them, Arthur shifted his mouth to his right cheek.  He trailed caresses up Llewyn’s cheekbone to just in front of his ear, drawing his lips over the skin that always felt so smooth just after Llewyn had shaved.  Arthur caught a slightly bitter taste, maybe the Noxzema—camphor probably _didn’t_ taste very good—but mostly, Llewyn just tasted like Llewyn.

“Fuck,” Llewyn breathed and shivered again.

“What?” Arthur whispered without lifting his mouth from Llewyn’s cheek.

Llewyn accused, “You know how sensitive my skin is after I shave,” and Arthur chuckled.

“I know,” he said.  He nuzzled Llewyn’s right ear, then switched to give his left cheek the same treatment, mumbling against the smaller man’s skin, “You’re so beautiful, Llew.”  He kissed down to Llewyn’s jaw, then his chin, then under it down to his throat.  Llewyn whined.

“Arthurrrr. . . .”

“Hmm?”  Arthur finally put his hands on Llewyn’s chest, spreading the fingers to cover all of it.  Llewyn reached out to put his arms around Arthur and pulled him closer with his small hands knotted into the fabric of Arthur’s bathrobe.  When Arthur raised his head, Llewyn leaned against him, chin on Arthur’s shoulder and cheek against the side of his head.

“Your hair feels so soft,” Llewyn whispered.  “It’s almost. . . too much.”

Arthur chuckled and mumbled into Llewyn’s curls, “What is?  My hair?”

“ _You_ ,” Llewyn breathed.  “How you feel on my skin.  Your hair and your fingers. . . all of you.”  He turned his head to press his mouth to the crook of Arthur’s neck and muttered against it, “I almost love you too much.”

“No such thing, little darlin’,” Arthur said.  “I got room for all the love you wanna give me.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”  Llewyn lifted his head just enough to catch Arthur’s mouth and kissed him slowly.  He started on the outside, nibbling on Arthur’s lips, then worked his way in until he’d levered his tongue deep into Arthur’s mouth and wrapped his arms tight around Arthur’s shoulders.  Arthur folded his own long arms around Llewyn’s waist and pulled the smaller man up against his chest as they kissed.

He felt Llewyn wriggling against him, but when Arthur tried to break the kiss and look down, Llewyn made a muffled scolding noise and gripped a handful of Arthur’s hair to keep their mouths locked together.  Arthur gave in immediately and let Llewyn do whatever it was he was trying to do.  Distracted as he was by Llewyn’s mouth, Arthur barely noticed his husband pushing the top part of his robe open, or gripping his waist between his thighs until suddenly their bare chests were pressed against each other, and Llewyn was grinding his cock on Arthur’s, and both of them were extremely hard.

“Mmpgh,” said Arthur.  Llewyn still had hold of his hair, so Arthur couldn’t pull away until Llewyn relented and let go.  Llewyn drew back slowly, sucking the spit off Arthur’s lips before finally allowing an inch of space between them for Arthur to catch his breath.

“Still don’t think it’s too much?” Llewyn whispered.  His lips brushed Arthur’s with each word.

“Nah,” said Arthur.  He considered their position for a second; then he dropped his hands from Llewyn’s waist to his ass and scooped him up off the counter.  Llewyn gave a very satisfying squawk.

“What the fuckin’ _fuck_!”  He sounded just how a pigeon would sound if it could talk.

“This rodeo’s just gettin’ started, darlin’,” said Arthur.  He backed away from the sink, and Llewyn clamped his legs tight around Arthur’s waist and clung to his shoulders, like he thought Arthur might drop him.  Arthur squeezed his ass and bend his head to kiss up Llewyn’s neck to his jaw and cheek while Llewyn squawked again, then moaned, “F-fuck, Arthur—Al.”

Arthur carried him back into the bedroom and laid him on the bed, face up.  Llewyn didn’t release the grip of his legs, and when Arthur tried to step away, Llewyn grabbed the tie of his bathrobe and tugged it loose so the robe fell open.

“If that’s indicative of how much love _you_ have for _me_ ,” Llewyn said with a significant look at Arthur’s erection, “I’m not sure I _do_ have enough room.”  He smirked as he said it.

Arthur scoffed, “Like hell you don’t, big as your mouth is.”

“Who said anything about my _mouth_?” retorted Llewyn as he arched his back and slid his pajama pants down over his hips.

\--

Arthur woke up on Easter morning lying on his side, with Llewyn behind him curling over his arm and shoulder.  Llewyn was nuzzling Arthur’s ear.

“Llew?” mumbled Arthur.  “What time’s it?”

“You _said_ you’d get up early enough to shave before church,” Llewyn reminded him in between nips to his earlobe.  “But you’re gonna be cutting it close if you don’t get your lazy ass outta bed soon.”

“Ugh,” said Arthur.  He closed his eyes again.

Llewyn sat up and started hauling on Arthur’s shoulder.  “No sir, Mr. Al Cowboy Cody, you don’t get to go back to sleep.  You shaved my beard off last night, so I’m shaving your—your little goatee thing off this morning.”

“ _What?_ ”  Arthur’s eyes flew open, and he raised himself up on his elbows.  “That ain’t part of the deal, Llew.  I said I’d shave before church, not that I’d let _you_ do it, and anyway, I meant my cheeks, not my whole _face_ —”

Llewyn leaned forward until his face—smooth cheeks, limpid eyes, big nose, and all—was just inches from Arthur’s, and growled, “And I didn’t say you could shave _my_ whole face, but you did it anyway.  _And_ I let you fuck me, so—”

“You begged me to fuck you,” Arthur pointed out.

“—so I’m shaving you.  And then I’m letting you drag me to church, and then when we get home I’m going to make you pancakes, so you’re going to owe me all over again.”  Llewyn climbed out of bed, gripped Arthur’s large hand in his small one, and pulled Arthur up after him.  “You better start thinking about where you’re taking me out to dinner tonight.”

Arthur let himself be led halfway to the bathroom before he stopped.  Llewyn tugged on his hand a couple times, sighed heavily, and looked back over his shoulder at the taller man.

“Llewyn?” said Arthur.

“ _What_.”

“I love you.”  Arthur caught up to Llewyn, lifted his little hand, and kissed it.  “Shave as much of my face as you want—I don’t know what you like about it, but it’s all yours—and then _you_ think about where you wanna have dinner.  I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go, ‘cos you deserve it.”

Llewyn stared up at him.  “Arthur—”

“And ‘cos I love you so much.”  Arthur leaned over to kiss Llewyn’s forehead, then dropped his hand and went on into the bathroom.  After a minute, Llewyn followed him in, rubbing at one eye with the back of his hand.

“I love you too,” he mumbled as he reached past Arthur to pick up the razor off the counter.  “And you know, that shaving cream of yours doesn’t smell _that_ bad.  Since I need more anyway, I might get some of your kind at the drugstore this week.  You need another can while I’m at it?”

Arthur managed to hide a smile.  “Nah.  You know, if we’re both using the same kind now, we could just share it.”

“Yeah.  I guess we could,” Llewyn said in a thoughtful voice while he ran the hot water tap into the sink.  He looked over at Arthur, then glared and leaned over to slam the lid down on the toilet before gesturing at it.  “Sit down, or my arms’ll get worn the hell out trying to reach up and shave you.  You’re too damn tall, Al Cody.”

“No,” Arthur said pleasantly as he sat down, “you’re just too damn short, Llewyn Davis.”

\--

To be continued


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this nonsense ages ago in response to an anon request on Tumblr for the prompt “I'm pregnant.”

**Friday, April 24, 1964**

“I’m pregnant.”

“What?” Arthur asked in a disinterested way.  He was sitting up in bed, glasses perched on his large nose, with sales reports scattered all around him.  He hadn’t even looked up at Llewyn when the other man spoke.

“I _said_ ,” Llewyn growled, “I’m _pregnant_.”

That time, he got Arthur’s attention.  Llewyn’s husband dropped the paper he was holding and looked at Llewyn over the tops of his glasses.

“ _What?_ ”

“I’m pregnant,” Llewyn said a third time, “and the baby is yours, Al Cody.  You’re gonna have to marry me.”  He had been leaning in the bedroom door, waiting for Arthur to notice him—which hadn’t happened until Llewyn spoke up, even though he was wearing a dress and had been standing there for a good three minutes—and now he came sashaying into the room.

“I already married you,” Arthur mumbled.  “What the hell, Llewyn.”

Llewyn sighed and leaned over the foot of the bed, bracing himself on his hands.

“It’s Friday night, and you’ve been working on that crap since you got home.  As hot as you look in those glasses, I’m not gonna sit here and let you ignore me all weekend,” he explained in what he thought was a remarkably patient tone.  “If it takes kinky roleplay to get you to pay attention to me, that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“Llew, I’m busy,” Arthur protested, although his pale cheeks were turning progressively pinker.  “I’ve gotta get this done.”

“You’re just like all the other musicians,” said Llewyn.  He pushed himself back upright and came around the side of the bed in a slow saunter.  Arthur’s eyes dropped down his body, then back up to his face.  Llewyn had shaved, just his face, because he knew Arthur liked that.

“What?” Arthur asked faintly.

“You think you can just walk away after a one-night stand,” said Llewyn, “without any consequences.”

“Llewyn. . . .”  The blush crept down Arthur’s neck too.

“But,” said Llewyn as he reached Arthur’s side, “you’re gonna make an honest woman out of me, Al Cody.  You’re gonna marry me.”

“ _Llewyn._ ”  Arthur swallowed, hard.  When Llewyn knelt on the edge of the bed, Arthur squawked, “Get off my sales reports, you’re gonna wrinkle—”

Llewyn swept the papers out of the way with one bare leg then straddled Arthur, kneeling over his lanky body covered by the bedclothes.  Arthur made a kind of choked whimpering noise.

“I wanted you from the first time I saw you,” Llewyn whispered.  He put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and leaned forward, looking down into the deep brown eyes slightly magnified by his reading glasses.  “I watched you up on that stage, singing in that sexy deep voice of yours, and I thought, ‘I want him to be my man.’”

“Llew. . . .”  Arthur’s hands drifted up to grip Llewyn’s backside through the skirt of his dress.  “I. . . I have work to do—”

Llewyn leaned forward to kiss him, hard but only long enough to shut Arthur up.  When Llewyn drew back again, Arthur tried to follow his mouth, but Llewyn held him down by his shoulders.  For a second, Llewyn saw Arthur’s eyes glint with frustration behind his glasses, but then they changed.  It was just the slightest shifting of his brows and an almost imperceptible dilation of his pupils, yet Llewyn knew exactly what it meant.

_I win this round,_ he gloated silently.  _Wife one, bringing work home from the office for the third time this week zero._

“You got pregnant on purpose, didn’t you?” Arthur whispered.  “You wanted to trap me.”

“I wanted you to be mine,” Llewyn answered in the throaty murmur he knew Arthur loved.  He slid his arms around Arthur’s shoulders and sank down unto his lap.  “And you’re gonna be.”  This time when Arthur leaned forward, Llewyn let him, and he tilted his head and dropped his eyelids even lower than normal.

“I fell in love with you,” whispered Llewyn, “and you’re gonna be mine forever.”

Arthur kissed him.  He wrapped his arms around Llewyn’s narrow waist and pulled the smaller man tight against him.

“I love you too,” he murmured into Llewyn’s mouth.  “I love you so much, baby.  No more work this weekend, I promise.”

“In that case. . . .”  Llewyn leaned even closer to whisper in Arthur’s ear, “I lied.  I’m not really pregnant.  I just wanted you to marry me.”

Arthur sounded like he was stifling a chuckle, but then he muttered, “So you thought you were gonna trap Al Cody, hunh?  You ain’t really pregnant?”

“Nope,” gloated Llewyn.

“Well then, little darlin’,” Arthur growled in his best Hollywood cowboy impersonation.  He took his glasses off with one hand and started sliding the other up Llewyn’s leg.  “You better hold on, ‘cos you’re fixin’ to be.”

\--

To be continued


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this based on a Tumblr prompt from Peppypear.
> 
> I've posted some photos of the locations and attractions mentioned in the story on Al and Llewyn's Tumblr:  
> [Hunt's Pier, the Astronaut, and the Golden Nugget Mine Ride](https://allewyn.tumblr.com/post/172980792491/photos-of-locations-mentioned-in-chapter-15-of)  
> [The Ranch House Motel](https://allewyn.tumblr.com/post/172980884521/photos-of-locations-mentioned-in-chapter-15-of)

**Saturday, June 6, 1964**

Going to the carnival was Llewyn’s idea.

He and Arthur had played a gig in Jersey late that afternoon, and Llewyn said he wanted to go to the boardwalk at the beach after, so they went over to Wildwood.  Arthur didn’t know why Llewyn wanted to go.  Usually, Arthur had to struggle to get Llewyn to go to the beach with him, or anywhere that wasn’t a restaurant or bar, and he couldn’t imagine Llewyn caring about the boardwalk and especially not the amusement park there.  They hadn’t gone out together in a while anyway, so why now?

_Probably because I don’t want to go,_ Arthur thought, sulking, as Llewyn drove them to Wildwood.  Arthur liked the beach, but he didn’t like the boardwalk, and he _really_ didn’t like amusement parks.  He hadn’t ever told Llewyn any of that, or said that he didn’t want to go, but he assumed Llewyn was acting so out of character just to spite him.  Because since when would someone like Llewyn Davis enjoy something like a carnival?

The gig had gone well, surprisingly enough.  It was something Llewyn’s friends (“patrons,” he called them, so sarcastically that Arthur could hear the quotation marks around the word) the Gorfeins had told him about, some publisher’s party.  They had it outdoors, in the garden of a house that probably cost more than Arthur would make in his entire lifetime, but he and Llewyn were paid well for it, and Arthur enjoyed himself.  He and Llewyn sang together almost the whole time, the first gig where they’d done that, and when their eyes met over their guitars and the few feet of manicured lawn between them, Arthur felt like everyone else there must be able to see how in love he was.

But of course no one at all suspected they were a homosexual couple, and Llewyn didn’t act like they were, even when no one was watching them or after they’d gotten in the car and he started driving them toward the coast.  Arthur had been mad on the way over to the party because he really didn’t want to go to New Jersey at all, and even though he forgave Llewyn while they were singing, he was mad all over again by the time they got to Wildwood.

After he parked the car but before they got out, Llewyn looked over at Arthur and asked, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” said Arthur.

“Are you mad at me?”  Llewyn’s eyes went all wide and dark.  Sometimes that look made Arthur feel sorry for him, and sometimes it turned him on.  Right now, it just made him angrier.

“No,” said Arthur.  “We didn’t come all this way just to sit in the car, come on.”  He got out, and Llewyn followed him over to the boardwalk.

Llewyn had chosen Hunt’s Pier, maybe at random.  Maybe, but it was the amusement park Arthur had the most memories of, although it had been Ocean Pier back then, before it burned down on Christmas Day in 1943.  The owner hadn’t reopened it all that long ago, sometime in the late fifties, and it didn’t look the same at all.  Nevertheless, Arthur still didn’t want to be there.  Somehow, Llewyn did.  Somehow, Llewyn was enjoying himself, despite there being kids everywhere—they never talked about it, but Arthur had always assumed Llewyn hated children, just like he would have assumed Llewyn hated amusement parks, if Arthur had ever bothered to think about it.

But Llewyn was smiling a little as they walked past the wooden Flyer rollercoaster—“Thrilling Ride over the Ocean” a sign promised—and he actually grinned at a boy when he nearly plowed right into Llewyn.  The kid was seven or eight, maybe, and he had a fat red balloon tied to his wrist.  He was more concerned with watching the balloon to be sure it didn’t escape, than watching where he was going.  A younger girl, maybe a sister, trailed him with a yellow balloon in tow, and she scolded him in a shrill voice.

“Sorry, mister,” the boy mumbled to Llewyn, casting a shy glance up at him.

“It’s okay,” said Llewyn.  “Don’t let your balloon get away.”  He smiled, and the kid smiled back, still shy.

“I won’t,” he said.

After the kids wandered off, Llewyn asked Arthur over his shoulder, “You don’t wanna ride the rollercoaster, do you?  I get enough crazy rail-riding on the subway in New York.”  He grinned, crinkling the corners of his eyes up in the way he did when he laughed at his own jokes.  Normally, it made Arthur smile, but he didn’t this time.

“No,” he said.  “I don’t like rollercoasters.”

Llewyn quit smiling and said, “Okay.”  They walked further along the pier toward the ocean, past a snack booth.  Llewyn asked, “You hungry?  I thought we could get dinner later, but if you wanna grab some popcorn—”

“I ain’t hungry,” grumbled Arthur.

“You sure?  You didn’t eat anything at the party.”

Arthur shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stalked ahead of Llewyn, not a difficult feat on his long legs.  He muttered, “I’m sure.  I wasn’t hungry then either.”

As Llewyn hurried to keep up, he argued, “You didn’t eat anything, and you barely talked to anyone.  You say I’m rude at your office parties, then you’re rude at our gigs—”

“I’m not rude at our gigs,” Arthur growled.  He stopped walking and turned back to face Llewyn.  “This was different, it was a party, and _you_ barely talked to _me_ when we weren’t playing.  I get it, Al Cody ain’t good enough for you when you’re around all your fancy academic friends.”

Llewyn stared at him and stammered, “What the hell, Arthur— _Al_ , where’s all this coming from?  It’s not like I ignored you or anything, and you know we can’t—can’t just be _together_ out in public.  Like yeah, they’re in academia so they’re pretty liberal and they like to think they’re open-minded, but. . . .”  He paused and raked both hands through his dark hair.  One by one, the curls sprung free from between his fingers to bounce wildly around his face.

Finally, Llewyn went on, “But Arthur, they’re not my friends.  They like watching me play because it makes them feel like they’re—I dunno, supporting the arts, or being benevolent or some shit, but they’re not my _friends_.  And if they knew that we’re together. . . well, they’re not _that_ open-minded.  You want me to tell them, I’ll tell them, but we’ll lose those gigs.”

He paused, frowned, and kept rambling when Arthur still didn’t speak: “I know we don’t really need the money, so it doesn’t matter them finding out, like it would matter if your boss found out.  But. . . I like knowing I’m helping out.  And I liked us playing together today.  Even if they didn’t know.”  He gazed up at Arthur with the other look that always got to him, not the needy one but the one that wasn’t at all calculated.  The one that Arthur could see and be certain that Llewyn really did love him.

But Arthur didn’t want that right now.  He wanted to be mad, and he wanted Llewyn to give him something to be mad at.  Llewyn was usually very good at that, so why was he being such a perfect partner _now_? 

Arthur scowled at him and snapped, “Of course I don’t want you to tell them, I ain’t stupid.  I don’t care about any of that.”

Hurt flickered over Llewyn’s face, but he regulated his expression before retorting, “Then what’s got you in such a shitty mood?  We sounded good—hell, we sounded _great_ , and they paid us already.  You said yesterday you had a good week at work, I got caught up on the fuckin’ laundry you’re always bitching about, the weather’s nice—”  Llewyn gestured over at the sun, which was halfway below the horizon opposite the ocean by then, as if he wanted it to take his side in the argument.  “—so the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m at a fuckin’ amusement park in fuckin’ _Jersey_ , _that’s_ what’s wrong with me!” Arthur snarled.  A perfect little family of four—mother and father both about Arthur’s age, and two little girls around the age of the kids with the balloons—were walking past as he spoke, and the parents overheard him.  The father glared and looked as if he were about to have it out with Arthur over swearing around his little princesses, but the mother put a hand on his arm and shook her head.  The tall rude man in the cowboy hat and boots might have a gun or something, she seemed to be thinking.  Anyway, the little girls hadn’t even heard the cursing, because they were too busy squealing over a stand selling ice cream cones.  The family moved on, and Arthur wondered how anyone could ever think _he_ would hurt somebody, even if he did swear sometimes.

Llewyn hadn’t noticed any of that, and he was flailing his hands around and squawking, “What are you talking about?  You’re _from_ New Jersey!  And you never said you didn’t want to come here—”

“ _You_ never asked!” Arthur interrupted.  “You just assumed I’d do whatever you wanted to, just like always, because _your_ opinion is the only one that matters, right?”

“Maybe if you _told_ me your opinions every once in a while I’d know what they are!” protested Llewyn.  He raked one hand through his hair again, then rubbed that hand up and down his other arm.  Both arms were bare; he’d worn short sleeves since it was warm and he and Arthur were going to be outside all day.  Llewyn’s skin had turned a golden tan during the late spring and early summer, and his hair had picked up slight chestnut highlights from the sun.  He looked beautiful.

Llewyn dropped both arms to his sides and looked up at Arthur again and said, “But really, you didn’t want to come out here?  I—I thought you’d like it.”

“Think harder next time,” said Arthur.

Llewyn stared at him, and his wide brown eyes shone.  Then he blinked, turned his head so he could rub his upper arm over them, and muttered, “Maybe there won’t be a next time,” before he trudged away from Arthur, down the pier toward the ocean.

Seeing Llewyn close to tears made Arthur quit being angry.  It made Arthur want to follow Llewyn and apologize, but he hung back instead.  If he followed Llewyn, Llewyn might demand to know why Arthur didn’t like amusement parks, and why Arthur hadn’t told him sooner.  Why he’d waited until they were there, and so angry about it he blew up at Llewyn and made him cry a little (although Llewyn would probably deny tearing up at all).  Llewyn might demand to know those things, and Arthur didn’t know how to answer him.

He walked back to the car because Llewyn had the keys, and Arthur was afraid that if he didn’t wait at the car, Llewyn might decide to go home without him and leave him there on the boardwalk.  After fifteen minutes of leaning on the back bumper, watching the sky go completely dark and the colored lights come up around him, Arthur realized how stupid he was to worry about that.  Llewyn might be an asshole, but he wasn’t _that_ kind of asshole.

_And this time,_ Arthur thought, _I’m the one who’s being a jerk.  Llewyn’s been so good to me today, and I’ve treated him like shit._   He pushed himself off the car’s trunk with both hands and strode back up to the pier, swallowing back the lump of teary guilt that had risen in his throat.

Arthur had never been to Ocean Pier, or any amusement park, at night; his mother wouldn’t let the family go after dark because she said it might not be safe.  Twinkling lights laced the buildings and attractions, and each letter of the word “FLYER” lit up in white on the rollercoaster’s sign.  Lights outlined the length of the coaster’s track too, reminding Arthur of Llewyn’s lame joke about the subway, and he suddenly wanted Llewyn with an ache that shook him to his core.  The crowds were picking up, so Arthur walked faster and elbowed his way past people as he tried to find Llewyn in the twilight.

Then, as he neared the far end of the coaster, Arthur spotted the attraction where he knew he’d find Llewyn waiting on him.  At the end of the pier closest to the ocean, past a boat ride called Jungleland and across from a pirate ship attraction, sat a little replica of a wild west mining town complete with faux cacti, building facades, and runaway mining car tracks.  In spite of the anxiety gnawing at his (empty) stomach, a little smile twitched over Arthur’s lips.

_Llew knows I’ll wanna check out the western ride,_ he thought, _so that’s where he’s gonna be._

Arthur skirted Jungleland and came up to the western attraction on his right.  A sign proclaimed it to be “The Golden Nugget Mine Ride.”  A line of patrons, many of them hyper kids, waited to board the mining cars, but he didn’t see Llewyn anywhere.  Arthur frowned and passed the Mine Ride.  Then he finally spotted Llewyn leaning against the pier’s railing just beyond the attraction, facing southward down the coast.  Arthur’s heart clenched with equal amounts of love and nervousness.  He swallowed hard and went to stand beside his husband.

“I’m sorry, Llewyn,” Arthur murmured.

Llewyn was quiet a moment; then he muttered, “Yeah,” without looking up.  He had his bare arms braced on the railing, hands dangling off.  None of the people down on the beach could have seen them clearly even if they’d looked up, so Arthur reached over and took one of Llewyn’s small hands in his.  He thought Llewyn might pull away, but he didn’t.

“You tried to do something nice for me, and I’ve been horrible to you,” said Arthur.  “I should have told you how I felt instead of assuming you knew.  I’m sorry.”

Arthur looked over and saw Llewyn’s bearded jaw jut out to the side as he ground his teeth.  Then Llewyn turned his head to look up at Arthur and ask in the most beseeching voice Arthur had ever heard him use, “But _why_?  This—this carnival shit is so _you_.  I thought you would’ve, like, _lived_ on the boardwalk as a kid or something.  Why d’you hate it so much?”

Arthur floundered for an answer he didn’t have: “I don’t—I don’t know, I just. . . do.  We did come a lot when I was a kid—me and my family, I mean.  We came to this same pier even, except it was called Ocean Pier back then.”

“And you hated it then too?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, automatically.  Then, “Well—no.  I mean, I was a kid, I liked some of it.  I never liked rollercoasters, but I liked the junk food, and I liked the dark rides.  They didn’t have _this._ ”  He gestured at the Golden Nugget Mine Ride.  “It was called the Witches’ Forest back then.  If they’d had a western ride I probably would have just. . . moved in here and refused to leave.  Never would’ve gone home again.”

Llewyn laughed, a shaky post-crying kind of laugh, and the anxiety clutching Arthur’s heart let up a little.  Llewyn still held on tight to Arthur’s hand.

“You came here with your parents?” he asked.  He had gone back to looking out over the water and the beach, and the people who were still down there even though it had gotten dark.

“Yeah, my parents and Dawn—my cousin Dawn, and her dad, my mom’s brother.  His wife died when Dawn was real little.  My uncle never remarried, so they did a lot of stuff with us.” Arthur looked back over his shoulder at the Flyer and frowned.

He muttered, “I’d forgotten about this, but she always wanted to ride the rollercoaster—Dawn did, I mean.  When she was eight, her dad finally said she was big enough.  She’s a year younger than me, so I had to have been nine.  Well, my uncle didn’t want Dawn riding the coaster by herself, but he didn’t like them either, so my mom said I had to go with her.  I didn’t want to, but Mom made me.”

He sighed and turned back to the ocean as he finished, “I screamed the whole time until I got sick, then I was too busy trying not to puke.  I managed not to throw up until after we got off, but Dawn made fun of me, and I felt like shit the rest of the night.”

“There you go,” said Llewyn.  “That’s why you hate amusement parks.  Childhood resentment toward your cousin.”

“Oh come on, that’s too easy,” Arthur protested.  “It was just once.  After that, my dad always rode the coasters with Dawn—he wanted an excuse to go anyway, he loved ‘em—and my uncle made her apologize for laughing at me.  It wasn’t that bad.”

But Llewyn persisted, “So now your cousin and your uncle are tagging along on all your family trips, _and_ your dad’s spending time with her instead of with _you_.”  He turned to face Arthur again and leaned against the railing, on his side this time.  “Let me guess, she was also the daughter your mom always wanted and never had, and you had to treat her extra nice because she was younger and a girl _and_ she didn’t have a mother, poor thing.  Am I right?”

Arthur groaned, “For God’s sake, Llew, all I said was that I had one bad experience on a roller coaster.”

“And twenty-five years later, you still hate the boardwalk, and you don’t talk to your family—not just ‘cos of that one thing, but it all adds up, hunh?”  Llewyn gave Arthur a surprisingly gentle smile.  “Look, it’s okay.  I got my own issues with resentment—we never even went to fuckin’ Coney Island because my sister didn’t like all the lights and crowds.  All the other kids got to go, but not me, and I wanted to so bad.  I can understand, and I shoulda asked first, instead of just saying we were going.  I’m sorry, baby.”

Hearing Llewyn apologize when Arthur was the one who’d acted like a shithead made Arthur want to break down, but something else Llewyn said distracted him from it: _All the other kids got to go, but not me, and I wanted to so bad._

“You wanted to come out here for you too, didn’t you?” Arthur murmured.  “‘Cos you never got to go as a kid.”

“Hunh?”  Llewyn blinked, then shook his head.  “Nah, I just thought you’d enjoy it, and we were out this way anyway, so. . . .”  He trailed off before amending, “Well, maybe.  I didn’t think about it that way, but maybe so.  I guess I _was_ pretty excited, until. . . .”

“Until I ruined it,” Arthur sighed.  “Llewyn—”

“No, no, it’s okay.  Look, let’s just go,” Llewyn interrupted him.  “If you’re getting your appetite back, we could grab dinner somewhere before we head home.”

“Llewyn.”  Arthur squeezed his hand, then rubbed the back of it with his thumb.  “Let’s stay, all right?”

Llewyn stared up at him and asked, “You sure?”  Arthur nodded.

“Yeah, I’m sure.  You’ve never been to an amusement park, and here we are,” he said.  When Llewyn smiled, Arthur smiled back and mumbled, “Um, and maybe it’s time I made some new memories here.  With you.  Since there _is_ a western ride now and all.”

Llewyn’s eyes got all shiny again, but he was still smiling as he said, “You might as well, since you’re wearing a fuckin’ cowboy hat on the beach, you dork.”  He let go of Arthur’s hand, and they walked back through the crowds to get in line for the Mine Ride.  As soon as they were seated alone in their mine cart in the dark, Arthur put his arm around Llewyn’s shoulders; then Llewyn wrapped both arms around Arthur and leaned up and kissed him; then they ended up having to go on the ride again to see what was happening because they made out the whole time on their first trip through.  What was happening was mostly skeletal miners and haphazardly-placed TNT and more very fake cacti, but Arthur liked it all the same.

They also rode the pirate ship attraction, which was pretty much the Mine Ride with pirates replacing the skeletal miners, and Jungleland, which replaced them with crocodiles.  Llewyn kept up a sarcastic monologue about how fake the attractions’ effects looked.  Yet Arthur saw Llewyn smile more than he had during the entire previous week—and Arthur realized that he himself was smiling too, even when they waited in lines or trudged through crowds or passed by the rollercoaster that had convinced him his parents loved his cousin Dawn more than they’d ever love him.  Arthur was smiling because he was with Llewyn, and the past didn’t matter any more for either of them.  They had each other now, and they could be silly and have fun, together.

Llewyn bought them hot dogs and Cokes, and they ate standing near a ride called the Astronaut, where kids were piloting little red, white, and blue rockets around a central column in circles.  Llewyn looked at the ride, then looked at Arthur and raised an eyebrow.

“Wanna try that one?  Or would it just make you puke like the rollercoaster?” he teased.

“That’s beside the point,” Arthur replied haughtily.  “I thought I made it clear the day we met, I have a strict ‘no going into outer space’ policy.”

Llewyn snickered, then broke down into laughter so hard, he nearly dropped the last bite of his hot dog.  He finally managed to get out, “They probably couldn’t fold you up enough to get those stilts of yours in the capsule, anyway.”

After that, they left the pier and wandered down the boardwalk in the general direction of their car.  On the way, Llewyn lectured Arthur about how all the midway games they passed were rigged, and Arthur tried to argue that they weren’t, until Llewyn stopped at a “test your strength” game to prove his point.  He could hardly lift the heavy mallet, much less hit the lever with enough force to win anything.

“See?” he gloated at Arthur, until Arthur paid for a try and was strong enough to ring the bell at the top of the machine.

“Fuck,” muttered Llewyn.  The operator smirked and told Arthur he could pick a prize, so he chose a stuffed animal.  He was pretty sure it was supposed to be a cat.  Once they’d walked a short distance away from the game, Arthur handed it to Llewyn.

“Here,” he said.  Llewyn took it in both hands and glanced up at Arthur, wide-eyed.

“For me?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  “Ain’t that what I’m supposed to do at the carnival, win a stuffed animal for my girl?”

“Fuck you, Al,” said Llewyn.  He was grinning, and he tucked the probable cat into the crook of one elbow.

“Besides, it looks like that cat you brought to my place that time,” Arthur added.

“Yeah,” Llewyn murmured.  “I guess it does.”

When they reached the car, Arthur got behind the wheel since Llewyn had had to drive all day.  As Llewyn settled into the passenger seat with the stuffed cat on his lap, Arthur asked, “Do you want to go all the way home tonight, or see if we can get a room here in town?  It’s pretty late, and it’ll take us a couple hours to get back.”

“Well if you put it like _that_ ,” smirked Llewyn, “and since you’re obviously angling to stay—”

“I ain’t—”

“—let’s find a motel,” Llewyn finished.  “I was planning on it anyway, originally—take you to the boardwalk, then out to dinner, then to a motel.  Nice romantic evening.”

“Oh,” said Arthur.  He looked at Llewyn unhappily until the smaller man reached over and shoved his arm.

“Except for ‘taking you out to dinner’ becoming ‘buying you a hot dog,’ it’s going according to plan, so don’t fuckin’ ruin it by being all sorry.  When you pull outta here, head north, and we can look for the place I wanted us to stay at.”

Arthur had never exactly loved following Llewyn’s directions while driving, but they managed to find the motel without too much trouble.  It was called the Ranch House Motel, and Arthur knew right away why Llewyn had picked it out.  Wagon wheels decorated the railings that lined the second story’s sidewalk and the roof’s patio.  Arthur could make out teepees and a covered wagon—and, of course, the requisite faux cacti—up there on the patio too.

“This is the dorkiest shit I’ve ever seen,” Llewyn said as Arthur pulled into the parking lot.  “The last time I saw Jim and Jean, she was talking about a vacation one of those new mommy friends of hers took.  Her family came up here to Wildwood, and they stayed here—Jean kept going on about how much their little boy loved it, and how she and Jim wanted her to bring James when he got old enough.”  Llewyn chuckled and finished, “And I just kept thinking about how much _Al Cody_ would love it.”

Arthur put the car in park and reached over to squeeze Llewyn’s knee.  “You were right, Llew—I do love it.  We gonna sleep in the teepee?”

“ _No_.  We’re sleeping in a _bed_ , and you’re not allowed up on the roof until tomorrow morning—I’m too tired to go exploring.”  Llewyn plunked the stuffed cat down on Arthur’s lap and opened his door as he ordered, “You wait here while I go get us a room.”

He got the room, then came back to the car to give Arthur one of the two room keys.  Llewyn went on in with his guitar and the stuffed cat, and Arthur waited five more minutes before he followed.  He was used to the routine, going in places separately to avoid suspicion, making sure no one realized they were lovers. . . partners. . . husbands.  It made Arthur feel a little sad, usually, but tonight he mostly just felt love for Llewyn, who had gone out of his way—his normal, grumpy, slightly self-absorbed way—to plan a surprise mini-vacation around the things Arthur liked.

Finally, Arthur got out of the car and took his guitar to the room.  Llewyn had put the stuffed cat on the bed, and his clothes were piled on the floor next to his guitar case.  He was in the bathroom with the door open and the shower running.  Arthur put down his guitar and set his cowboy hat on the dresser, then stripped and joined Llewyn in the shower.

Llewyn wasn’t as tired as he had let on, and while they didn’t go exploring on the roof that night, he and Arthur explored each other in the shower for quite some time.

Afterwards, they went to bed where Llewyn lay in Arthur’s arms and they kissed, slowly and softly.  Llewyn had kept the stuffed cat in bed too, up on his pillow to his left with Arthur on his right.  When Llewyn’s kisses got slower and the clutch of his arms grew laxer, Arthur realized he was close to falling asleep.

“Llew?” Arthur murmured, before that happened.

“Yeah?” mumbled Llewyn.

“I’m sorry.”  Arthur brushed the damp curls of black hair back from Llewyn’s forehead and kissed his brow.  “I’m so sorry I hurt you, baby.  I was awful to you today.”

“It’s okay, Al,” said Llewyn.  He tilted his head back to look at Arthur through his eyelashes; they could just barely see one another by the motel’s outer lights leaking in past the curtains.

“No, it’s not,” whispered Arthur.  “You got us a great gig, and it was so good singing with you.  We were so good together.”

“We _are_ so good together,” Llewyn corrected him.  “Even if you fuck up once in a while, we’re still good together.”  He reached up a hand to stroke Arthur’s cheek as he yawned and added, “And I owe you a whole bunch more fuck-ups, as much shit as I’ve put you through.  So it’s okay, cowboy—we played a good gig, and you apologized, and we had fun tonight, right?  We had fun?”

“Yeah.”  Arthur turned his head to kiss Llewyn’s palm.  “We had fun.  I think I like amusement parks after all, as long as I’m there with you.  We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

“Yeah, we will,” Llewyn agreed.  He snuggled closer to Arthur, then yawned again.  “Knew you’d have a good time.  Bet I know what your favorite ride was, too.”

Arthur chuckled.  “The Mine Ride?”

“Nope.”

“No?  What then?”

Llewyn grasped Arthur’s hand and tugged it down to rest against Llewyn’s backside.  “This right here.”

Arthur chuckled and squeezed him and said, “You ain’t wrong, little darlin’.”  He kissed Llewyn’s forehead again and hugged him close.  “G’night, Llew.  I love you.”

“Love you too, Al,” mumbled Llewyn.  He drifted off to sleep, but Arthur lay awake awhile holding the man who knew him and loved him so well.

\--

To be continued


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All song lyrics in this chapter are from Petula Clark’s “Don’t Sleep in the Subway.”

_You wander around on your own little cloud when you don't see the why or the wherefore._  
_You walk out on me when we both disagree 'cause to reason is not what you care for._  
_You try to be smart then you take it apart 'cause it hurts when your ego’s deflated._  
_You don't realize that it's all compromise and the problems are so over-rated._

\--

**Wednesday, July 22, 1964**

The night Llewyn left Arthur was warm and clear, so he waited for the taxi outside, seated on the curb in front of their house.

 _His house_ , Llewyn reminded himself.

He'd gone out while Arthur was in the shower.  Arthur had stormed off into the bathroom after they ran out of things to scream at each other, and Llewyn had taken the opportunity to go then, so he wouldn’t have to explain that he was leaving Arthur, for good this time.  Llewyn threw some of his clothes in a bag and took his guitar.  He had to leave some things behind, because now he had more belongings than he could hold in a couple bags.  Arthur liked buying him things.

When he hung up the phone after calling for a cab—it would have to drive out to their neighborhood all the way from the city—Llewyn’s eyes fell on his wedding ring.  He pulled it off and threw it in the trash on his way to the front door, but then he stopped and turned around and dug it out again.

 _He’ll never notice it in the can,_ Llewyn thought, _because he never takes the fuckin’ trash out_.  He left the ring on the counter beside the sink, then went out the door.

The fight had started with the laundry, but it hadn’t really been about that, even though Arthur yelled the loudest when he bitched about the laundry.

“Why should I have to do all the laundry,” Llewyn muttered to himself out on the curb.  “Just because I’m home all day doesn’t mean I don’t have shit to do.  He’d bitch if I skipped making dinner to do the fuckin’ laundry instead, so let’s see how he fuckin’ likes doing _all_ of it for himself.  He can wash his own fuckin’ laundry and cook his own fuckin’ dinner.”

But Arthur wouldn’t cook dinner just for himself.  He’d eat sandwiches until he ran out of peanut butter because he always forgot to go to the store.  Then he’d start eating in diners and cheap restaurants again, like he had before Llewyn moved in.

Llewyn thought, _He’ll get too skinny again_ _because he won’t spend money on himself.  Like he doesn’t have plenty of fuckin’ money—always showing it off too, telling me to order whatever I want when we go out, and always buying me shit._   Arthur had, in fact, bought the shirt Llewyn was wearing.  Llewyn liked it, even though it wasn’t anything he would have bought for himself.  Llewyn tended to wear drab colors, and this shirt was dark red, the same color as what Arthur had been wearing the day they met.

 _If only I’d known then_ _what the fuck I was getting into, asking to stay with him,_ Llewyn told himself. _I never would’ve done it._  He thought about Arthur perched on a stool, long legs sprawled, making ridiculous sounds in his deep voice, so weird and so intriguing with his abnormally large nose and dorky awkward grin.  Llewyn thought about how he’d caught Arthur looking at him with those chocolate brown eyes, as curious about Llewyn as Llewyn was about him.  He thought about how Arthur had let him stay on the couch, and how Arthur had taken care of him after Llewyn got beat up, and how after a year at sea with the Merchant Marines, coming back to Arthur felt like coming home.

 _If I’d known then,_ Llewyn thought, _that the first home I’d had in years would be with him, and that he’d bitch about me not doing the laundry, I never would have asked to crash on his couch._

But the fight hadn’t really been about the laundry.  Llewyn hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, so he was tired and grouchy.  Arthur had had a rough day at work, something about getting scheduled for a business trip next month all the way out in California.  He’d be gone for two weeks.

“Two fuckin’ weeks?” Llewyn had groused.  “Why do _you_ gotta go?  Why doesn’t Witmer ever send anybody else?”

“Because I got promoted to vice president of sales,” Arthur had retorted, “and I get _paid_ to go on business trips.”  And so Llewyn had accused Arthur of not caring about anything but money, and Arthur accused Llewyn of being sore about having to do all the housework by himself for two weeks, and it had degenerated from there.

By the end of the fight, Llewyn said he’d be glad to be rid of Arthur for two weeks, and Arthur said he’d be glad to get away from Llewyn for two weeks.  Then Arthur went to take his shower, and Llewyn decided that if Arthur wanted to get away from him so badly, Llewyn would leave right then and there and save him the wait.

“He’ll never see me again, since that’s what he wants,” Llewyn told the streetlight across the road from him.  “We made a shitty couple anyway.”

There were bugs swarming around the light, and a bat abruptly swooped in from the surrounding darkness to catch some for its dinner.

“I mean it,” Llewyn said to the bat.  “We’re no good for each other.  This is it, this is goodbye.  Not _au revoir_ , fuckin’ _adieu_.”

“Except you didn’t even tell him goodbye,” Llewyn imagined the bat saying in its ultrasonic squeak.

“Fuck off,” Llewyn muttered.  “Where the hell is that cab, anyway?  Probably got lost trying to get out here.  Fuckin’ suburbs.”

\--

_Goodbye means nothing when it's all for show,  
So why pretend you've somewhere else to go?_

\--

After he’d been sitting outside a few minutes, Llewyn heard the front door open.  He tensed, expecting Arthur to start shouting again, but he didn’t hear anything else until Arthur was close enough for the sound to reach Llewyn of Arthur’s bare feet brushing through the lawn.  The grass was pretty short because mowing it was Arthur’s job.

Arthur sat down beside Llewyn on the curb without saying anything.  He was on Llewyn’s left, and Llewyn’s guitar case and bag were on his right.  They sat there in silence, and out of the corner of his eye, Llewyn could see Arthur’s profile and his face tilted up toward the night sky above the streetlight.  They couldn’t see any stars there because of the light, but the moon was up with Venus beaming just below it.  Arthur was wearing his cowboy hat and his bathrobe.  His thin legs stuck out below the hem from his bony knees down, knotted calf muscles standing out with tension.  His long toes were slightly curled too, but anyone who didn’t know his body as well as Llewyn did would think he was relaxed.

“What are you doing out here?” Arthur asked after he’d looked at the moon for awhile.  His face remained turned up, and he might have been talking to the moon, or the bat which was still feasting around the streetlight.

“Leaving you,” muttered Llewyn.  He turned his head to the right and looked up the street toward the subdivision’s entrance.  “Fuckin’ cab’s taking forever.”

“Probably got lost,” said Arthur.  “They always do, coming out here.”  He reached down a hand, languid, to scratch the ankle nearest Llewyn.  The motion caught Llewyn’s eye, and he turned his head back to watch Arthur’s fingers and his feet resting on the asphalt.  The asphalt was probably still hot from the sun that day, and Llewyn wondered why Arthur hadn’t bothered to put on shoes if he was going to wear the fucking hat.

Arthur continued, “Where you going?  To Jim’s?”

“No,” Llewyn retorted automatically, although that was probably the best choice since the Berkeys had the guest room now.  But they also had a baby that cried at all hours of the night, and Jean would gloat if she knew Llewyn and Arthur had broken up.  She would say that Llewyn had fucked that up just like everything else, that Arthur was too good for him, and that Llewyn was an asshole who deserved to be alone, forever.  She’d be right about all of it, but that didn’t make her gloating any easier to put up with.

 _Jean’ll gloat,_ Llewyn thought, _but Jim’ll be upset._   He could picture the upset on Jim’s face, the hurt look in his eyes, and how he’d try to talk Llewyn out of his decision.

Jim would be upset, and Arthur didn’t even care.  He had asked where Llewyn was going the way someone might ask what Llewyn was going to play at his next gig, with polite disinterest.  The tear ducts prickled at the edges of Llewyn’s eyeballs, and he turned his head away again and blinked hard.  Sometimes when he stared into the mirror, he looked at those ducts, the tiny pinholes at the corners of his eyes, and wondered how something so small could be so treacherous.

“Where then?” Arthur persisted, like someone might say “What then?” if Llewyn told them he wasn’t going to play anything of Dylan’s.

“Gorfeins,” mumbled Llewyn.  “Haven’t seen them in a while.  Or Titus and Dawn’s place.”  Titus and Dawn didn’t really have room for him.  They didn’t even have a couch, but they’d let him stay.  Titus would give him the same kind of hurt look Jim would, though, and Dawn. . . Christ but Dawn was fuckin’ nosy about his and Arthur’s relationship.  Maybe because she was a white girl engaged to a black guy, and two men getting married was even more unusual than that.  Llewyn would be up all night answering Dawn’s questions if he went to stay with them.

“Okay,” Arthur said.

“Why?” Llewyn growled.

“Just wondering.  Wanted to be sure you weren’t gonna be sleeping in the subway or something,” said Arthur.

Llewyn rolled his eyes and asked, “What’s it to you?”  Arthur didn’t answer.  Llewyn glanced up and down the street again and grumbled, “Where’s that fuckin’ taxi?”

Arthur put his left hand on his right knee, and Llewyn looked down at it without meaning to.  Arthur was wearing Llewyn’s wedding ring on his little finger, just below the lower knuckle because it wouldn’t go down any further, and he was busy pulling his own wedding ring off the fourth finger.  He held it out to Llewyn once he got it off.

“Here,” Arthur said.

“I don’t want it,” Llewyn snapped past the pain in his tear ducts and his throat.

“You gave yours back,” Arthur pointed out, “so it’s only fair.”

“Fine.”  Llewyn snatched the ring.  It was far too big for any of his fingers, so he shoved it on his thumb.  The ring still was in danger of falling off, so Llewyn folded his thumb under his palm to keep it on.  Llewyn glared at his ring on Arthur’s finger, the silver band with its row of little diamonds.  He loved how it looked, and he hadn’t taken it off since Arthur had put it on him a few months ago.  _Until now,_ Llewyn thought.

Arthur looked at Llewyn, saw him glaring at his ring, and said, “It’s too small for me.”

“The fuck does that matter?” muttered Llewyn.  “Won’t stop them from buying it from you at the pawn shop.”

“I ain’t gonna sell it, Llewyn,” Arthur murmured.  “I’m gonna wear it.”

Llewyn scoffed, “Why?  It doesn’t even fit you.”

“I’m going to wear it,” said Arthur, “because it reminds me of my wife.”  Llewyn flinched, and the treacherous pinhole beside his right eye overflowed.  It was the side farthest from Arthur, so he probably didn’t noticed.

When Llewyn could trust his voice, he rasped, “Why you want to be reminded of your wife?  I hear your wife’s an asshole who never does the laundry.”  He tried to say it sarcastically, but it came out sounding like an admission of guilt.

“Yeah,” said Arthur, “he is.  And he doesn’t.  But he’s a good cook, and he can sing.  Not many guys’ wives can sing.”

“That’s no big deal.  My husband sings,” Llewyn countered.  He looked up at Arthur even though he didn’t want to; his eyes just dragged themselves up to the larger man’s face of their own accord.  Arthur looked back down at him, and his face looked so handsome beneath the ridiculous cowboy hat, Llewyn could barely whisper, “He’s good.”

“Probably not _that_ good,” Al told him.  “Anyway, I hear he’s a workaholic who doesn’t appreciate his wife.  He just complains about how tired he is, and he never takes out the trash.”

“Well then,” murmured Llewyn.  “It sounds like your wife and my husband would be a bad match.  If they lived together, there’d be trash and dirty clothes all over the place.”  He stopped when a pair of headlights turned into the subdivision from off the highway.  Llewyn watched them, thinking, _No, not yet,_ but the lights went the opposite direction.

Before the car’s taillights were out of view, Arthur said, “Not necessarily.  Maybe my wife would take out the trash and your husband would do the laundry.  So even though they’d nag each other some, everything’d get done eventually.”  Llewyn could feel Arthur’s eyes still fixed on him.  “Maybe they’d make it work.”

“No,” Llewyn whispered.  “They’re no good for each other.”  He turned his head back and up to meet Arthur’s gaze.  His eyes prickled and his voice shook, but he went ahead and said it anyway: “I’m no good for you.”

Arthur said, “Maybe not, but you’re still the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Llewyn’s voice broke when he said, “Fu-fuck you, Al.”

Arthur went on, “I was upset because I’d have to be away from you for two weeks.  I don’t know what I’m going to do without you _forever_.”

“You said you’d be _glad_ to get away from me,” Llewyn accused.

“I was angry.”  Arthur had no hint of anger in his voice now, and his ability to forgive so quickly incensed Llewyn all over again.  It didn’t help when Arthur added, “And you said you’d be glad to get rid of me.  I guess you meant it since—since y-you’re getting rid of me f-for—forever.”  His illusion of calm cracked along with his deep voice, and just before Arthur bit his full lower lip, Llewyn saw that it was trembling.

Llewyn snapped, “I was angry too!  I _am_ angry—you’re leaving for two weeks, and you don’t even care, and all I’m good for is keeping house, and I can’t even do _that_ right!”

“Llewyn. . . .”  Arthur’s shoulders quivered, and then he began to cry.  The tears ran from his eyes down his pale cheeks and into his goatee.  “Y-you know that ain’t true, not any of it.”

“Fuck, Al, don’t cry.”  Llewyn looked down the street to avoid seeing Arthur’s tears, and he saw headlights coming back their way, from the direction the car had gone.

“Why shouldn’t I cry?” Arthur asked in a shaking whisper.  “My beautiful wife is leaving me.  You’re leaving me.”

The headlights drew even with the house.  They were attached to a taxi, and Llewyn held his breath.  The cab passed their driveway, slowed, and turned in two houses down.  Llewyn breathed again.

“Fuckin’ cab,” he hissed.  “I bet that’s it, driver just can’t find the right house.  Dumbass didn’t even notice me sitting out here with a bunch of shit, obviously _waiting on a fucking taxi._ ”

The taxi honked at the neighbors’ house.

 _They’ll come out in a minute,_ Llewyn thought, _and tell him he’s got the wrong house.  Then he’ll check the address and drive back down here, and then. . . then I’ll have to go.  I can’t not go if the cab is here._

Arthur raked his bony arm sleeved in the bathrobe across his eyes and lurched to his feet.  Llewyn heard him give a suppressed sob as he turned back toward the house and stumbled across the grass.

The taxi honked again at the neighbor’s house, and after a few seconds, the front door of the house opened.

 _If I’m out here when the cab gets here,_ Llewyn thought, _I’ll have to go._

Before Arthur had taken very many steps across the grass, Llewyn got to his feet too and grabbed for his bag and guitar case.  When he staggered past Arthur, the taller man stopped short and stared down at him.

“Llewyn—”

“Get in the fuckin’ house,” Llewyn grumbled as he stalked up to the front door.  Arthur’s ring nearly fell off his thumb, and Llewyn clenched his hand into a fist to keep it on.  “Unless you want the fuckin’ driver to catch you.  He’ll probably make you pay him for coming all the way out here for nothing.”

Once he got in the house, Llewyn dropped his stuff and held the door open just long enough for Arthur to follow him inside.  Then Llewyn slammed the door shut and locked it.  He snapped the lights off so they wouldn’t show to the cab outside, and Llewyn couldn’t see anything at all until his eyes adjusted to the dark.  Arthur kept a nightlight in the hall that led back to the bedrooms, and he’d already turned it on for the night, so by that Llewyn could see the other man’s white face and those dark, questioning eyes.

“I couldn’t stay out there,” Llewyn explained, “because we aren’t through talking.  If I was out there when the taxi came, I’d have to leave.”

They both jumped when they heard the cab honking right outside the house.  The driver had finally gotten the right address.

Arthur said, “He’s just gonna keep honking until one of us goes out there.”

“Let him honk,” declared Llewyn.  “He doesn’t know anyone’s home.  He’ll go away eventually.”

Arthur looked at the door then back down at Llewyn’s face.  He hesitated, then came a few steps closer.

He whispered, “Llew, of course I care that I’m gonna be gone for so long.  And of course you ain’t just a—a housekeeper.”  He paused.  “If I wanted a housekeeper, I’d hire one who did the laundry and didn’t nag me about the trash.”  The flash of his smile, quick and awkward, lit his face, and Llewyn nearly choked over unexpected laughter.

“A fuckin’ housekeeper would be cheaper than buying me presents all the time,” Llewyn mumbled through his chuckling.  The taxi honked again.

Al closed the rest of the distance between them and put his hands on Llewyn’s shoulders; then he murmured, “Llewyn, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I made you think you ain’t important to me, and for what I said when I was mad.  Please—”  His hands clenched over the shoulders of the red shirt he’d given Llewyn.

“Arthur!”  Llewyn wrapped his arms around Arthur’s chest and buried his face in Arthur’s bathrobe.  Arthur’s chest was smooth with little hair on it, and Llewyn rubbed his stubbly cheek against the skin not covered by the robe.  “Arthur, I’m not leaving you.  I promise, I won’t ever, _ever_ leave you.”

Arthur’s arms came up around Llewyn’s shoulders and hugged him close.  The fingers of one hand buried themselves in Llewyn’s hair, and Llewyn felt Arthur’s lips follow them to caress his curls.

“And I’m sorry too,” Llewyn whispered against Arthur’s chest.  “I didn’t mean it when I said I’d be glad when you went on your trip.  And I don’t care about the fuckin’ trash.  All I care about—”  He caught himself before he said it; it sounded too trite and sappy even in his own head.

But Arthur whispered, “What, Llew?  All you care about is what?”

Llewyn gave in and mumbled, “You.  All I care about is being with you.  I love you, Arthur.”

The cab outside gave a long, sustained honk.  They both ignored it.

“I love you too, baby,” Arthur assured him.  He stroked Llewyn’s hair for a moment, then gently set Llewyn apart from him.  He took Llewyn’s small hand in his and pulled the loose wedding ring off his thumb.

“My wife’s ring doesn’t fit me,” Arthur told him, “so I’m gonna wear this one instead.”

“You might as well,” Llewyn replied.  “It’s my husband’s ring, and it doesn’t fit me either.”

Llewyn pulled the ring out of Arthur’s grasp and put it back on him, on the proper finger.  Then Arthur took Llewyn’s wedding ring off his own little finger, and he put it back where it belonged, on Llewyn’s ring finger.  He brought Llewyn’s hand to his lips and kissed it before he dropped it to take Llewyn’s face in his hands instead.  Arthur bent down, and Llewyn leaned up, and they kissed soft and slow.

When their lips broke apart, Arthur murmured, “It’s getting late, Llew.  We oughta get to bed.”

“What about my stuff?” Llewyn asked with the kind of smile he knew Arthur liked to see.  “I need to unpack.”

“You can unpack in the morning, darlin’.  Right now, we’re going to bed,” Arthur told him.  He latched his arm around Llewyn’s waist and bodily hauled him toward their bedroom.  It always turned Llewyn on when Arthur manhandled him, and by the time Arthur slung him down on the bed, Llewyn had forgotten all about his unpacking.  He did have a moment of coherence when he realized he hadn’t heard the taxi honking in some time, but then Arthur pounced on him.  After that, everything else faded away because Llewyn was home again.

\--

_The night is long, forget your foolish pride.  
Nothing's wrong, now you're beside me again._

\--

To be continued


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All lyrics in this chapter are from “99 Days” by the Himalayans.

_She said,_   
_“I wanna be the rain, I am a red balloon, I got a book of dates.”_   
_She’s gonna go away and leave me here tonight._

_She said,_   
_“I wanna be a plane, I am a red balloon, I’ll never be the same,_   
_And I’m gone, gone, gone on the wind.”_

\--

Diane’s parents were upset when she came back to Akron pregnant, but she’d known they would be.

She didn’t ask them what they’d rather she’d done instead, because really, she knew the answer to that too.  They might say she should have stayed in New York until the baby came so she could put it up for adoption there, before she came home; or they might say she should have married the baby’s father; or they might say she should have kept her legs closed in the first place.  They might say _anything_ besides that she did the right thing by coming home knocked up where all their friends and family would _know_.

But Diane knew what they really, secretly wished she had done, what they would never say to her or each other, what they would never confess to their priest or to God or even to themselves.

Diane wasn’t sure exactly how they would have phrased it, whether they would have said “aborted” or “taken care of” or “done away with.”  Not “killed” or “murdered” when it was _their_ embarrassment to be handled.  _Their_ daughter’s problem.  Her unwanted pregnancy.  Her unplanned child.

Her baby.

Diane didn’t tell her parents that she _did_ almost get an abortion.  She didn’t tell them much of anything, other than that she was pregnant—she wasn’t showing much yet, but they had to be told.  When they reacted as she suspected they would, she decided to keep as much to herself as she could.  She didn’t tell them that Llewyn had somehow scraped together enough money to pay an obstetrician under the table for the abortion, or that she had gone in after hours to have it done and then changed her mind.

Llewyn had already given the doctor the money, and Diane went in alone, by choice.  Llewyn had offered to come, but she declined because it would have been horrible for both of them.  The doctor was professional, cold but not rude or judgmental—even though he had two hundred dollars riding on her, it wasn’t like Diane could just take her business elsewhere if she didn’t like his attitude, so she appreciated the professionalism—and he explained the procedure and what she could expect afterwards.  By the time he finished, she had decided she didn’t want it done.

It wasn’t the description of the procedure, or anticipation of the pain she’d have to endure, that made Diane change her mind.  Instead, it was simply that she hadn’t allowed herself to think about her pregnancy until then, except for when she told Llewyn.  At all other times, she put it out of her mind.  But she made herself listen to the obstetrician’s explanation, and she thought, _He means my baby, he’s talking about my baby,_ and when he had finished and asked if she had any questions, Diane asked, “Do I have to?”

“What?” the obstetrician asked.

“I don’t want to do it,” Diane said.  “Is it too late to cancel the procedure?”  She thought he would say yes because he would want the money, or at the least, he would attempt to change her mind.  But he didn’t even try to convince her to go through with it.  Later, she realized she could hardly have been the first girl to back out, but at the time, she felt all alone in the world.

“No,” said the obstetrician, “we don’t have to do the procedure.”

He asked if Diane wanted the money back, and she said no, it was Llewyn’s.  She asked for recommendations of obstetricians in Akron, then thanked the doctor and went back to her apartment.

Diane left New York the next weekend and returned home without seeing Llewyn again; they had both agreed that it was for the best.  She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t had the abortion—not out of spite or any kind of ill will, but because she thought that was for the best, too.  While Diane wasn’t in love with Llewyn and never had been, she did care about him.  Diane did not want to marry him, and she knew he could barely support himself.  He had enough burdens to bear—most of them self-inflicted to be sure, but burdens all the same—without a child to feel guilty over, too.

_Maybe someday we’ll come back to New York and visit him,_ Diane thought on the bus ride to Akron, but she never saw Llewyn Davis again.

\--

_She said,_   
_“You’ll never get away, you need a red balloon, you need a better day_   
_This time, you’re headed home this time.”_

\--

She hadn’t known whether she should even tell Llewyn she was pregnant.  They weren’t in love, weren’t even really dating, and they had both always known she’d be going back to Akron when she finished college.  She didn’t know what good telling him would do, or any way that he could help—in fact, all she could think of were ways that he could make things worse.  According to his friend Jean, Llewyn excelled at making things worse (although Diane didn’t like Jean much and didn’t exactly trust her opinion on anything, especially not on Llewyn himself).

The day Diane did tell Llewyn came a couple weeks after her graduation, and a couple weeks before she moved back home.  She didn’t start out planning to tell him; it just happened.

Llewyn had a little spare cash for once, and he took her to a film festival.  They were showing a bunch of foreign shorts, some old and some recent.  One of them, _The Red Balloon_ , was French and had just been released the year before.  Diane liked it at first; it was cute.  A little boy from Paris found a red balloon, and it started following him around the city.  It was alive.  It was his friend.

But then she began to feel uneasy about the film.  The boy’s mother, or grandmother, or whoever it was he lived with, didn’t like the balloon.  She made him leave it outside their apartment, although he snuck over to the window to visit it.  He couldn’t bring the balloon into school with him.  And when a gang of bullies came after the boy and his balloon, Diane knew the film wasn’t going to end well.  She realized she should have known that from the beginning.

When the bullies cornered the boy and the balloon, he begged it to save itself.

“ _Ballon, ballon!  Vole loin!”_ wailed the boy.  The bullies began to pelt the balloon with rocks.  Diane started to cry.

When the balloon refused to abandon its friend, the inevitable happened: a rock tore its rubber flesh.  The balloon didn’t pop like Diane expected, but its slow deflation was worse.  Her tears had become outright sobs by the time the balloon’s air was all gone and it was just a limp, red rag on the ground.  In the theater seat beside her, Llewyn turned to look at her with helpless alarm.

The filmmaker meant _The Red Balloon_ ’s ending to be happy, and all the other balloons in Paris rescued the boy.  They came swooping in and carried him away, flying him high above the bullies and the rest of the city.  But neither they nor he gave another thought to the slain red balloon who had died trying to protect him, and the image that stayed with Diane long after was not the triumphant flight over Paris but a final shot of the forgotten red rag, which the filmmaker included as if to point out that death comes for us all, even for those of us who are magical sentient balloons.

As soon as the film ended, Llewyn clasped Diane’s arm and led her, still weepy and sniffling, out of the theater even though the festival wasn’t over.  He didn’t say anything for a while, only glanced at her wide-eyed every minute or so as they walked to a nearby coffee shop.  Diane rubbed at her eyes and nose with her handkerchief, tried to get herself under control, and felt bad for worrying Llewyn.

After they sat down and he bought her some tea and himself some coffee, Llewyn finally ventured to ask, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Diane mumbled.  “It’s just. . . that stupid balloon.”

“Uh, I’m sorry,” Llewyn mumbled back.  “You know, it’s a French film, it’s gotta be dramatic even if it’s for kids.  I’m surprised the balloon didn’t have a death monologue.  Maybe in a squeaky helium voice—”  Diane started to tear up again.  Llewyn muttered, “Shit,” and took a drink of coffee.

“The kid _told_ it to go away,” Diane went on when she could control her voice.  “He _told_ it.  But that dumb, _stupid_ balloon, it’s a fucking _balloon_ , it should _know_ that rocks were gonna pop it.  What kind of idiot balloon doesn’t know something like that.”

She expected Llewyn to say something like, “Yeah, what the hell are they teaching in balloon school these days, anyway?” but he didn’t.  Instead, he set down his coffee cup and reached out to put his hand on her arm.

“It knew,” Llewyn said.  “But it also knew rocks can hurt kids, too.”

Diane stared at him.  He looked back at her with the large, limpid, mahogany-brown eyes that were what had drawn her to him in the very beginning.  Llewyn had that way of keeping his lids half-lowered, so that he seemed to be looking out through his long lashes into a dream world that only he could see.

_I hope it’s a better world,_ Diane thought, _a world where the balloons really do come to life and protect the people they love—but there, the people they love don’t forget them.  They don’t ever, **ever** forget them._

“Llewyn,” Diane whispered.  Her eyes had started to fill again.

Llewyn blinked, and he searched her face.  “What?”

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

\--

_Some trips last longer than others._  
_She just said, “Goodbye.”_  
 _She’ll just float away._  
 _I’m gonna die right here this time._

\--

Diane’s mother told her she could move back in until the baby was born, and stay after until she found a job in her degree field, if she agreed to give the baby up for adoption.

Instead, Diane and her trunk of belongings from college spent the night in a motel, and the next day she found a furnished studio apartment she could afford if she got work within a week.  She did get work, first in a store until she really started showing and the owner realized she was pregnant out of wedlock and fired her, then as a waitress until she had her baby.

The baby was a girl, and Diane named her Maria because she had said Hail Marys over and over during her labor.  She named Llewyn as the father on the birth certificate and gave Maria his last name.  As the months went by and the baby grew into a toddler, she looked more and more like Llewyn, and Diane never regretted any of her decisions.

One night when Maria was almost three, Diane had a dream: she was back in New York City, in the Village, with the string of a large, round, red balloon tied around her right wrist.  Without being aware of how she had gotten there or where the balloon had come from, she knew she had to find Llewyn and give the balloon to him.

_How the hell am I going to find him?_ she wondered as she stared up at the balloon, which bobbed cheerfully above her head in bright contrast to the cloudy grey sky.   _God knows who he’s staying with these days, he could be anywhere in the city._   But she had to give him the balloon, so she started walking around the Village and asking everyone she met if they knew Llewyn Davis.

No one did, until finally Diane came across a pale teenaged girl wearing a thin pink sundress even though it was winter.  The girl looked up at Diane with blue-violet eyes and said, “Yes, he’s staying over on Downing Street.”

Diane frowned.  “Downing Street?  Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” said the girl.

Diane sighed because it was a long walk to Downing Street, but then when she turned the next corner she was there, and so was Llewyn.  His back was to her and he was walking away from her, but it could only be him: a short man with hunched shoulders, a tangle of curly dark hair, and a blocky coat that didn’t seem to be doing much of anything to keep him warm.  She called his name, and he turned around.

“Diane?” he called back.  He looked surprised.

“I have to give you this!” Diane gasped, out of breath half from exhaustion and half from relief.  She hurried over to him and held out the wrist with the string tied to it.  Llewyn looked up at the balloon.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s the balloon,” she muttered as she picked at the knot in the string with her left hand.  She couldn’t get the knot undone because she was right-handed, so she gave up and jiggled her wrist at him and said, “Here, untie it and take it.  You have to take it.”  Llewyn looked from the balloon to her, still puzzled.

“Okay,” he said.  He reached out and started working on the knot.  He was wearing the same gloves he’d had the winter before she left, grey ones that covered his palms and most of his fingers but left his fingertips bare.  He eventually got the knot undone, pulled the string loose, then stepped back and stood awkwardly holding the red balloon.  It bobbed lightly on a breeze Diane couldn’t feel.

“Now what?” asked Llewyn.

“I’d better tie it to you,” said Diane, “so you don’t lose it.”

Llewyn sighed, “I’m not going to lose it.  Even if I let go, it’ll just follow me.  It wouldn’t leave even if I told it to go.”

Diane was doubtful.  “Are you _sure_?  It’s important.  This balloon is very important.”

“I’m sure,” said Llewyn.  He looked up at the balloon again and said, “ _Ballon, vole loin.  Vole loin, ballon rouge.”_   Then he let the string go, and the balloon hung steady in the air beside him.

“Why are you speaking French?” Diane asked Llewyn.  “Didn’t you tell me you’re Italian?  Italian and Welsh?”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn, “but have you ever met a balloon that can speak Welsh?”  He grinned.  Llewyn had never smiled much, so it was startling.

“You _will_ take care of it?” Diane persisted.  “I know it’ll take care of you, but you have to take care of it too.  Don’t let anyone pop it.  If they do put a hole in it, you have to patch it up.  Don’t just leave it if another balloon comes along.”

“I won’t, Diane,” said Llewyn.  “I’ll take care of it, I promise.”  He took the balloon’s string again and held it.  Diane looked up at the balloon again and smiled, although she felt like crying.

“Goodbye, balloon,” she said, and then she woke up.

\--

_Some girls last longer than others,_  
_Too few red balloons,_  
 _Too little time tonight._

\--

The morning after she had the dream, Diane got herself and Maria dressed, fed herself and Maria breakfast, then dropped Maria off with her landlady who watched several of the kids in the building during the day for a little extra money.  As she walked the few blocks to the restaurant where she still waitressed, Diane wondered what the dream had meant.  She thought about it at work all that day; as she walked home; as she picked up Maria and got their dinner ready; as she gave Maria a bath, and went back and forth to the basement to do a load of laundry, and took her own shower, and put Maria to bed.

Diane had the next afternoon off, so she took her shower early and changed clothes and took a cab to see a lawyer whose address she found in the phone book.  She told him she wanted to make a will because she was concerned about who would get custody of her child if she died.

She did not tell him she’d never even thought about that kind of thing before she had a dream about a red balloon.

Like the obstetrician in New York, the lawyer surprised her: he did what she wanted without much argument or judgment of her.  When she told him that she wanted Llewyn to get custody of Maria, since she knew her parents would just put her into an orphanage or foster care or wherever unwanted children went, the lawyer said that was fine.

His only caution was to tell her, “You do know that Mr. Davis can refuse custody, correct?  The will can prevent your parents from gaining custody, but it cannot force him to raise your daughter.”

“I know,” said Diane.  She hadn’t known for certain, but she had supposed something like that was the case.  She was glad, anyhow; it wouldn’t have seemed fair to her if she had the power to force Llewyn to take on the responsibility of a child she’d never told him about.

_But what if he **does** refuse?_ Diane wondered on the cab ride back to her little apartment.  _What if something happens to me, and he doesn’t want Maria?_   Then she answered herself, _Then she’ll go wherever my parents send her, but at least Llewyn will have had a chance to take her, and I will have done what I could to help her.  The red balloon didn’t know the other balloons were coming, but it still did everything it could._

When she got home, Diane picked up Maria from day care and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with her and reading to her and telling her about her father.  Over the next three years, Diane did all those things as often as she could.  The only thing she did more was express to her daughter how much she loved her.

\--

When Maria was five, Diane died crossing the street on her way to work one morning.  A car which ran a red light struck her, and she was dead before any police cars or ambulances arrived.  But in her last moment, she stared blind up at the sky and saw the purple-eyed girl from her dream kneeling over her.

“What happened to the balloon?” Diane asked the girl in her mind.  In reality, Diane’s mouth was frozen half-open and filling with blood, and her eyes had glazed over.

The dream-girl smiled.  “ _Your_ balloon will be just fine—you made sure of that.  And you already know about the others. . . the balloons that float away to a better world where they can protect the dreams of the people they love.”  She held out a small, pink-white hand and said, “Come with me, and help them protect Maria’s dreams too.”

Diane placed her own hand—her dream-self’s hand, since her real hand was twitching and thrumming uncontrollably against the asphalt—in the teenager’s, and the girl pulled her to her feet and into the sky.  As Diane’s life left her body, she remembered thinking, long ago, that Llewyn’s eyes seemed able to see into the dream world where people never forgot those whom they loved.  She hoped he really could see that far, every now and then, so that he’d know she was there watching over their daughter’s dreams.

\--

_Some worlds last longer than others.  
She got a red balloon, she's gonna be the sky._

\--

To be continued


	18. Chapter 18

**Wednesday, August 19, 1964**

The letter came while Arthur was away in California on a business trip.  It came certified, so Llewyn had to sign for it, and when he saw the return address of a lawyer in Akron, his face felt washed out and hot all at the same time.

 _Child support,_ he thought.  That would be the best-case scenario.  Worst-case would be a law suit, although he had no idea on what grounds—it was just the only other thing he could think of that would involve a lawyer.

“Because they can’t legally force you to marry someone, right?” Llewyn muttered as he went back in the house, flipping the envelope over and looking at the back as if it could tell him what was inside without him actually having to open it.  He dropped the rest of the mail on the end table and collapsed on the sofa.  Llewyn held the letter in his hands and looked at the front.  Both the return address and the recipient’s address—Llewyn’s name, spelled correctly; Arthur’s address—had been typed.  The postage stamp read “AMERICAN MUSIC” with a drawing of a horn and lute that looked like instruments only angels would play.

 _How did they find this address?_ Llewyn wondered.  _Why now?_

Finally, he stuck a finger under the envelope’s flap and ripped it open.  Arthur had a letter opener somewhere, but Llewyn had lost it in the week and a half that Arthur had been gone.  He pulled out a folded piece of stationery.  It was watermarked and bore the lawyer’s name and address on the letterhead.  Llewyn looked at the signature, the initials typed below it: the lawyer’s in capital letters and the typist’s in lower case.  Then he looked at the date: August 17.  It had taken two days to reach him.

After that, Llewyn read the short letter.  His face prickled with heat all over again.

He read the letter again; then he dropped it on his lap, looked down at it, and whispered, “Fuck.”  He murmured the word wonderingly, not really because he felt like swearing but because he didn’t know what else he could possibly say.  He wished fervently that Arthur were there, then felt equally glad he wasn’t.

“Fuck,” Llewyn said a second time.  He looked at the clock and saw that it was only three.  That meant it was noon in Los Angeles, where Arthur was.  He was probably eating lunch with potential wholesalers or customers or some pretty secretary he’d met, Llewyn thought.  Llewyn had the phone number of Arthur’s hotel for emergencies, but Arthur wouldn’t be in his room at noon, and leaving a message for him would only scare him.  Llewyn didn’t know what he’d say, anyway.

In the letter, the lawyer had given his phone number and asked for Llewyn to call it, at his convenience.  Llewyn picked up the receiver of the heavy black phone on the end table, next to the pile of other mail, then set it down again when he noticed a postcard on top of the stack.  It showed a photo of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Llewyn picked it up and looked at the back.  Arthur had addressed it to Llewyn in his sloping, looping cursive handwriting—nothing like Llewyn’s cramped, messy print—and on the message half of the card, he’d written, “You would hate Hollywood.  Careerist.  Tell my family I love them.  -Al”  In spite of his distress over the other letter, Llewyn smiled because _he_ was Arthur’s family now.  Arthur had written “I love you,” several times in fact, in the sealed letter he’d sent at the beginning of his trip, but they had to be careful about mail other people could read.

Llewyn sighed and put the postcard back on the table and picked up the phone again.  He dialed the lawyer’s office in Akron, long distance.  When a secretary answered, Llewyn wondered if she was the one who’d typed the letter.

“Yeah, hi.  Uh, I got a letter, I’m supposed to call Mr. Hamilton?  Is he in?” Llewyn asked.  He hoped the lawyer was taking a late lunch so Llewyn could just leave a message.  But the lawyer was in, and after he said hello, Llewyn realized he didn’t know what he was going to say, any more than if he’d called Arthur.  He resorted to rambling.

“Uh, yeah, this is, this is Llewyn Davis.  I got your letter.”

“Yes.  Mr. Davis.”  The lawyer didn’t say anything else, and Llewyn fidgeted on the couch.

He mumbled, “Look, I. . . I can’t give you an answer today.  I live—I share a house, I have a roommate.  He’s out of town and won’t be back until Friday, and I’ve got to talk to him about it first.”

“All right, Mr. Davis,” said the lawyer.  “Whenever it’s convenient.”  As if making the decision was a matter of _convenience._ Llewyn stewed, but he didn’t say anything snarky because lawyers made him nervous.  He always felt like they were just waiting for him to damn himself.

“I’ll call back on Monday,” Llewyn told him.

“That will be fine, Mr. Davis,” said the lawyer.

Llewyn looked down at the letter in his lap and mumbled, “Her name is Maria?”

“Yes.”

Llewyn asked haltingly, “What. . . what does she look like?  Not that that makes a difference, but—but I just. . . wondered.”  He cursed himself even before he finished stammering.  _“What does she look like?”  That’s a damning question if I ever heard one.  Fuck._   Llewyn clenched his hand over the edge of the letter, crumpling it.

“I’m afraid I’ve not met her,” said the lawyer.  Llewyn thought that was all he would say, but then, finally, Hamilton showed symptoms of being human.  “You. . . you don’t know?”

“No,” said Llewyn.  “I’ve never—I’ve never met her either.  Or seen her.”

“Not even a photograph?”

“No.”  Llewyn thought about self-damnation, but he wanted to talk.  He _needed_ to talk to someone, and Arthur wasn’t there.  He said, “I didn’t even know about her for—for years.  And this is the first I’ve heard anything from. . . from anybody.  About her.”  He fell silent, and the seconds of long distance ticked away.

“I’m sorry it had to happen this way, Mr. Davis,” Hamilton told him after no one spoke and it got awkward again.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “Me too.”  He looked over at Arthur’s postcard and sighed, then muttered, “I’ll call back on Monday morning.”  That would force him to talk to Arthur about it by then.  He didn’t know what he would say to Arthur.  He didn’t know what Arthur would say back.

“All right,” said the lawyer.  “Have a nice day, Mr. Davis.”  He hung up before Llewyn could think of how to respond.

Llewyn hung up the phone and read the letter again; then he tossed it aside on the sofa and went through the rest of the mail.  He stuck Arthur’s postcard up on the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a strawberry.  Arthur had bought a set of plastic fruit magnets for no apparent reason, and they’d turned out to be kind of useful.  Llewyn hung the postcard with the picture side out, but then he flipped it around so Arthur’s loping cowboy handwriting showed.

 _I need to talk to somebody,_ Llewyn thought.  _I need to talk to a woman, a woman would know what to do with her, what she needs._   He walked around the living room and thought of the women he knew.  He couldn’t talk to Lillian Gorfein; she didn’t know about Diane, and Llewyn didn’t want to tell her.  Jean would probably know more about what to do than anyone else, but Llewyn didn’t want to talk to her either.  She might gloat, or curse him, or— _Or tell somebody,_ Llewyn thought, _call **somebody** and tell them what a shitty person I am and that I shouldn’t be allowed to do it.  That they should keep her away from me._

 _Her_.  Llewyn stopped pacing in front of the hall that led back to the bedrooms: his and Arthur’s, and the guest room where Llewyn kept most of his stuff.  _Her name is Maria.  Why Maria?  I guess I could tell people it’s because she’s a quarter Italian._

Looking down the hall, Llewyn saw the pile of his dirty clothes where he’d tossed them on the floor next to the laundry room, and it reminded him he still had all the laundry to do before Arthur’s return.  _I should change the sheets_ , he thought.  _And get groceries so I can make him something nice for dinner when we get home from the airport._   Llewyn turned and looked back into the living room, at the old newspapers and dirty dishes and other clutter he’d left sitting around over the past two weeks.

 _I’m a shitty housekeeper,_ Llewyn thought.  _And I’d be an even shittier father.  What the fuck am I thinking about talking to Arthur for?  I should call that lawyer back right now and tell him no._

Instead, he started picking up the newspapers and kept wondering what woman he could call.  He hadn’t spoken to his sister Joy in more than a year; the last time he’d called her, he’d told her about Arthur, and it hadn’t gone well.  Their mother was dead.  Arthur didn’t speak to his mother anymore either, or the girl cousin he mentioned sometimes.

Llewyn stuffed the newspapers into the trash can and started running water in the sink to do the dishes.  He picked them up one by one and scraped the bits of leftover food into the trash on top of the newspapers—some of it was stuck on pretty damn good—then started washing them

As he scrubbed, he considered the women who worked in Arthur’s office.  Llewyn couldn’t remember any of their names.  He _did_ remember that Arthur’s boss’s wife was named Phoebe, and she already knew (by accident) that Arthur’s wife was actually a man.  But Llewyn found her intimidating, and confiding in her would leave him especially vulnerable.  He was afraid that might put Arthur’s job in jeopardy somehow.

That left Dawn.  Llewyn didn’t even know her that well; she was the fiancé of Titus, a guy he’d met playing at a coffee shop.  But Titus and Dawn both knew about Arthur and were cool about it, and Llewyn thought that probably meant they’d be cool about Maria, too.

Llewyn dried his hands on the dish towel—it had strawberries on it too, and he idly wondered why Arthur liked to decorate with fruit so much—then started digging through the remaining clutter in the living room to find his notebook, where he’d written down Titus and Dawn’s phone number.  Llewyn had almost straightened up the whole room before he thought to look under the sofa.  He found the notebook there, but by that time, he’d changed his mind.

 _I need to tell Arthur first, before I talk to anyone else,_ Llewyn thought. _He deserves that much, even from a shitty wife._   When he checked the clock, it was after five, and he decided to call Arthur at nine, when it would be six in California.  He had four hours to figure out what he was going to say.

Llewyn took out the trash, ate a bowl of cereal for his dinner, and showered.  He sat down with his guitar and couldn’t play; called to cancel the gig he had scheduled for the next night; watched television without seeing any of it.  Just before nine, he got up and went over to the refrigerator to read Arthur’s postcard again.

_Tell my family I love them._

At nine, Llewyn made his second long distance call of the day, still not knowing what he would say.  When the front desk at Arthur’s hotel answered, Llewyn asked for Arthur’s room and waited to be connected.  As the phone rang on the other end, Llewyn wondered if Arthur would even be in the room.  He might be out having dinner with whatever wholesalers or customers or secretaries he didn’t see at lunch.  He might be in a bar buying drinks for some woman, one who looked better in a dress than Llewyn did.

 _Or another man,_ Llewyn thought, _who looks better than me, period._

But then Arthur answered, his deep voice startled and a little apprehensive: “Hello?”

“Hey,” said Llewyn.  “It’s me.”  His face prickled with nauseating, nervous heat like it had when he read the letter, yet at the same time, the sound of Arthur’s voice made his chest feel warm in a good way.

“Llew!  Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, it’s fine.”  Llewyn looked down at his knees, covered in worn, faded black terry cloth.  He was wearing Arthur’s old bathrobe.

“Okay, good,” Arthur said.  “I just didn’t expect you to call.”

Llewyn held the receiver in one hand and picked at a pill of lint on the robe with the other.  “Sorry.  I just. . . wanted to talk.  Missed you.”

“Aw, Llew,” Arthur breathed, “don’t be sorry, baby.  I miss you too.”  Llewyn could hear him draw in a breath before he asked, “Are you _sure_ you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.  Wasn’t sure you’d be in, though,” Llewyn said.  “It’s dinner time.”

“I got room service,” Arthur told him.  “The company’s paying for my meals, so why not?”  He laughed awkwardly, but it was a real laugh, the way he laughed when he was truly pleased.  He went on, “It was good.  Wish you were here with me—we could’ve eaten together in bed.”

“Mmn,” said Llewyn, and he smiled.

“What’d you do today?” Arthur asked, and Llewyn told him.  Then he asked what Arthur had done, and Arthur told him about interminable meetings and showrooms and catalogs of bulbs for the lighting his company manufactured and sold.

“Sounds real exciting,” groaned Llewyn.  “I thought you might have chatted up some hot secretaries.”

Arthur laughed.

Llewyn couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Are you going out later?  There’s gotta be some decent bars.  I mean, it’s L.A.”  He looked down at his bare feet on the bland tan carpet of their living room.  “You’ve been there almost two weeks, I guess you’ve been out a lot.”

Arthur said gently, “Llew, I’ve only been out of the room once after seven p.m., and that was dinner with the president of a design firm my boss is trying to woo.”

“The fuck’ve you been doing every night then?” snorted Llewyn.

“Watching TV,” said Arthur.  “And reading.”

“Those shitty paperback westerns you like so much?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.

“What else?” Llewyn asked.

“Uh, drinking,” Arthur admitted.  “There’s a minibar in the room—it’s nice.  It’s like the room service, makes me wish I had you here to share it with.  So that’s the other thing I’ve been doing, missing you.”

“Fuck, Al,” Llewyn murmured.  He missed Arthur so much, it hurt.  “You’re still coming home Friday, right?”

“Yeah.  I wish to God I could change my flight and come back tomorrow, but it’s the last day of the show.  I gotta be there,” said Arthur.

Llewyn traced the coils of the phone cord with a fingertip and said, “It’s okay.”  His nerves had calmed, but now he _really_ didn’t want to tell Arthur about the letter.  He didn’t want to do anything that would dissolve the warmth in his chest or make Arthur not want to come home to him.

“Did you get my postcard?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah, it came today.  Got it on the fridge.”  Llewyn looked at the postcard from across the living room and kitchen.  “Good thing I _didn’t_ come with you.  Anyone in Hollywood saw me, they’d want me in the movies.”  Arthur laughed, hard.

“Damn right they’d want you, baby, soon as they saw those pretty eyes of yours.”  Arthur’s voice dropped, lower and deeper.  “And that mess of curls, and your perfect body. . . . fuck, Llew, I miss you so much.  Can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at that picture of you I’ve got in my wallet.”

Arthur laughed again, softer than before, then murmured, “Hey, you know what we oughta do?  You dress up, then we get a picture taken somewhere, of us as husband and wife.  Then when I tell people about my beautiful wife, I could show ‘em too.”

“Yeah,” murmured Llewyn.  “Yeah, let’s do that.  Arthur—”  He stopped.  He couldn’t tell Arthur about the letter over the phone.

“What, Llew?” Arthur asked when Llewyn didn’t continue.

“Nothing.  I just love you,” Llewyn muttered.  “I just fuckin’ love you.”

“I love you too, baby,” whispered Arthur.

Llewyn sighed.  “I’d better go.  This call’s gonna cost a fortune.”

“It’s worth it to hear your voice,” said Arthur.  “I’d make you sing for me, but I know it’s late there.  When I get home, will you do it?  Oh wait, do you got a gig Friday night?”

“No, I didn’t schedule anything.  I knew I’d wanna stay home with you.”  Llewyn didn’t tell Arthur he’d canceled Thursday’s gig too.

“Okay, good.  I want you to stay home with me too.  But anyway, like I was saying, I’ll let you get to bed now.  Sleep tight, baby.”  It was just the kind of dorky thing Llewyn expected Arthur to say, and it made him smile again.

“G’night, Al,” Llewyn mumbled.  He paused then said again, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”  Arthur made a kissing noise into a phone before he hung up.  Llewyn set the receiver in the cradle and slumped back on the sofa with Arthur’s robe wrapped tight around him.

\--

To be continued


	19. Chapter 19

**Friday, August 21, 1964**

On Thursday, Llewyn did all the laundry, including the sheets, and went to the grocery store.  He bought the ingredients for making spaghetti since it was Arthur’s favorite dinner.  Llewyn had tried a bunch of different recipes, hoping to find one that would taste the way his mother used to make it.  He’d _almost_ gotten it right.

 _Joy probably has her exact recipe,_ Llewyn thought resentfully as he put the ground beef away in the refrigerator.

Arthur’s flight got in just after noon on Friday, and Llewyn was picking him up at the airport.  Before he left the house, Llewyn took the postcard off the refrigerator and tucked it into one of the drawers in the guest room dresser, under a jumble of clothing he never bothered to fold.  All the other postcards and letters Arthur had sent him on business trips were in there too, along with the notes Arthur left when he went out on errands, and the letter he’d sent when Llewyn was in the Merchant Marines.

There was also a piece of paper Llewyn had found one time after Arthur cleaned out his briefcase.  It was covered in old notes from a meeting, scrawled on a yellow legal pad.  In the margins, Arthur had been jotting bits of a song he was working on, and across the bottom he’d written their names, his and Llewyn’s, in a nicer script and drawn hearts around them like a schoolgirl.  Everything Arthur had ever written to Llewyn was there in the drawer, and Arthur didn’t know Llewyn had kept any of it.

Llewyn drove Arthur’s car to the airport he still thought of as Idlewild, even though it had been renamed for Kennedy last Christmas Eve.  While he waited for Arthur, Llewyn fidgeted and wondered when he should bring up the letter.  In the car?  After they got home?  After dinner?

He still hadn’t decided by the time Arthur’s flight got in and the passengers deplaned.  Llewyn was waiting in the terminal, and he saw Arthur—taller than a lot of the others and wearing his cowboy hat—before Arthur saw him.  Both Llewyn’s heart and his stomach flip-flopped.  Then Arthur spotted him and grinned.  Llewyn tried not to think in clichés, believing it was bad for his creativity, but Arthur’s face lit up.  That was the only way to describe it.

Arthur ambled over to him and stopped a couple feet away.  People flowed past them, so the most he could do was keep smiling.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” said Llewyn.  “Your flight okay?”

“Yeah.”  Al was wearing a suit and had his briefcase in one hand.  His empty hand dangled by his thigh and twitched like he wanted to touch Llewyn.  “Lemme grab my suitcase, then we can go.”

Llewyn was quiet at the baggage claim and on the way to the car.  He got behind the wheel while Arthur put his luggage in the back and climbed in the passenger seat, but when Llewyn went to start the car, Arthur caught his hand.

“Llewyn, is something wrong?” Arthur asked.

“No,” said Llewyn.  “Why?”

“You’re awful quiet.”  Despite Llewyn’s denial, Arthur’s eyes had the worried look they got when Arthur thought he’d done something to piss Llewyn off.

Llewyn gave the first excuse he could come up with: “I just thought you might not want to talk.  You’re probably tired.”

“I’m okay,” said Arthur, but his eyes still looked worried, and Llewyn didn’t want that.  He glanced out the windows to be sure no one was near the car, then leaned over and kissed Arthur quickly on the mouth.  Arthur breathed, “Mmn,” against his lips, then put his hand on Llewyn’s thigh and squeezed it when Llewyn sat back.

“I missed you so much,” Arthur whispered.  “I’m glad it’s the weekend—I don’t want to do anything the next couple days but lay around with you.”

“I missed you too,” said Llewyn.  He drove them home without mentioning the letter.

“Want me to wash your clothes?” Llewyn asked Arthur when they were back at the house and Arthur had carried his suitcase to the bedroom.

“No, don’t worry about it.  I’ll do ‘em tomorrow.”  Arthur paused and looked around.  “Besides, it looks like you actually kept up with your own laundry.  I’m impressed.”

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “Changed the sheets too.”

“Yeah?”  Arthur grinned at him.  “Planning on spending some time in bed?”

“Maybe,” said Llewyn.

“Good.  Because for the rest of the day, all I’m gonna do is catch up with my beautiful wife.  No chores allowed.”  Arthur pulled Llewyn into his arms and kissed him again, hard and deep this time.  Llewyn kissed him back, ready to get lost in Arthur’s mouth and hands and body where he wouldn’t have to think about the letter until tomorrow, but then Arthur drew back and gently set Llewyn apart from him.

“I’d probably better get a shower first though,” he said.  He shrugged out of his suit jacket and started loosening his tie.  “Ain’t had one since last night, and then I was crammed into a tin can with a bunch of other people for _hours_ , so. . . .”

When he heard the familiar drone of Arthur’s voice stop, Llewyn looked up at him.  Arthur was giving him the worried look again.

“What?” Llewyn muttered guiltily.

“Llewyn, something’s wrong, ain’t it?” Arthur insisted.  “You look miserable.”

Llewyn retorted, “I’m not _miserable_ ,” and folded his arms.  But he knew Arthur wasn’t going to leave it alone, so Llewyn tried the tactic he’d always used on his mother when he had to tell her something he didn’t want to talk about: “I just need to talk to you about something, after you get out of the shower.”

There.  The need to have a discussion was broached, the discussion would be inevitable now that Arthur knew about it, but Llewyn didn’t have to talk about it right _then_.  He could figure out what to say while Arthur was in the shower.

“Talk to me now,” said Arthur, and he sat down on the end of the bed.  Llewyn looked at him unhappily and remembered that tactic had always backfired with his mother, too.

“Okay, fine,” Llewyn grumbled.  “Just a minute, I gotta get something.”  He went back to the living room to get the Akron lawyer’s letter off the end table, where Llewyn had left it under the telephone.  When he returned to the bedroom, Arthur still looked worried, and when Llewyn sat down beside him with the folded paper crumpled in his fist, Arthur looked downright scared.

“Llew?” he murmured.  He started to reach a hand toward Llewyn’s arm, then drew it back again without touching him.  They both looked down at the letter Llewyn was clutching.  Arthur said, in the tone he used when he was trying to be funny and knew he wasn’t succeeding, “Well, that can’t be divorce papers since we ain’t legally married.”

Llewyn stared at him as he realized that all this time, Arthur had been worried Llewyn was acting weird because he was leaving.  Llewyn had threatened to do it often enough, had gotten as far as the end of the driveway once, but running out on Arthur was the last thing on his mind now.

 _He’s going to **want** me to leave him after this,_ Llewyn thought.

Aloud, Llewyn said, “Fuckin’ dork, if I was divorcing you, I would’ve just left while you were in L.A.  Sure wouldn’t’ve changed your sheets on the way out, either.”

Arthur chuckled a laugh weak with relief, although his dark eyes still held some worry in them.

“Well, what’s that then?” he asked, nodding toward the letter.  The gesture apparently reminded him he was still wearing his hat, and he took it off and set it on the floor.  Llewyn flicked his wrist out to point the letter in Arthur’s direction; then, before Arthur could take it, Llewyn drew it back in.  Arthur made a noise that was equal parts confusion and exasperation.

“I can’t just let you read it.  I gotta tell you,” Llewyn muttered.  He glanced up at Arthur before looking down again and fixing his gaze on his wedding ring instead.  Easier to look at that than to watch Arthur, he thought, and see Arthur’s reaction on his expressive face.  Llewyn took a breath and began.

“When I first moved in, I told you about Diane, right?  And my—my kid.  In Akron.”

“Yeah,” said Arthur.  Llewyn couldn’t hear anything in his voice and resisted the urge to look at his face.

“Well, I got this on Wednesday.”  Llewyn waggled the letter clutched in his fist.  “It’s from a lawyer.  In Akron.  Diane’s lawyer.  He drew up her will.”

“Her _will_ ,” Arthur repeated.

“Yeah,” said Llewyn.  “She’s dead.”

Arthur didn’t say anything.  Llewyn could imagine why not: what _did_ you say to your partner when he told you one of his former one-night stands, the mother of the child he’d never met, was dead?  “I’m sorry”?  “I’m _not_ sorry”?

“Car wreck,” Llewyn went on.  “I mean, I guess.  The letter says automobile accident, didn’t explain more than that.  But it happened a few months ago.”  He slowly relaxed his fist and smoothed the folded letter out across his thighs.  “It took ‘em this long to get it executed I guess.  And to find me.  I don’t know how they found me, here.  I must’ve put the address down on something, somewhere that went on record.”

He stopped, and Arthur still didn’t say anything, just waited.  In a way, Llewyn liked that Arthur was giving him time to get it out, but he also wanted to grab Arthur by the shoulders and shake him and demand to know where the hell he got off being so patient and so _nice_.

“This,” Llewyn thumped the letter with the heel of his hand, “says the kid’s a girl.  And she’s five now.  And her name is Maria.”  It was the second time he’d said the name aloud, but saying it to Arthur was different than saying it to the lawyer.  Saying it to Arthur made her real, made her not just “the kid” anymore, made her—

“My daughter,” said Llewyn, and then he was able to get through the rest of it.  “In her will, Diane said that if something happened to her, she wanted me to take Maria.  Not her parents.  _Me_.”

Llewyn braced his elbows on his thighs, the right elbow landing on the letter and further crumpling it, and he dropped his head in his hands with his fingers clenched into his hair.

“Why the _fuck_ would she want that?  She didn’t even tell me—she didn’t even know I knew Maria _existed_.  I found out by—”  He broke off, not wanting to say the word “accident” or “mistake.”  Llewyn drew a shaky breath and mumbled, “I gotta call the lawyer and tell him if I want her or not.  If I say no, I don’t—I don’t know where she’ll go.  Diane’s parents, I guess.  I can’t believe they’d let—let me. . . .”  He balled his hands into fists around the handfuls of his rumpled hair.  “What the fuck am I gonna do.”

“Llewyn.”  Arthur’s deep voice was gentle, and so was the hand he put on Llewyn’s hunched shoulder.

“What,” Llewyn muttered.

“Look at me.”  Arthur’s hand moved to cover Llewyn’s smaller hand and tug it free of his hair.  With his other hand, Arthur caught Llewyn’s chin and turned his head.  When Llewyn dropped his hands to his lap and looked up at Arthur, Arthur took his face in both hands.

“Do you want her?” Arthur asked.  Llewyn’s eyes jerked from one of Arthur’s to the other, trying to read his expression.

“I—I called the lawyer and said I couldn’t give him an answer right away.  Told him I had a roommate and I had to talk to—”

Arthur interrupted him, “Don’t think about me.  Or the grandparents, or the lawyer, or anybody else but you and her.  Maria.”  He stroked Llewyn’s bristly cheeks with his thumbs and asked again, “Do you want her?”

“Yes,” whispered Llewyn.  He hadn’t known how he was going to answer until he said it, but once the word was out, he realized there’d never been any question about that, even if he couldn’t understand why.

Arthur smiled and said, “Okay.”  Then he leaned forward and kissed Llewyn’s forehead.

“What—” Llewyn rasped in a hoarse voice, craning his neck back so he could see Arthur’s face again.  “What the fuck do you mean, ‘Okay’?  _What’s_ okay?”

Arthur chuckled and said, “I mean. . . well, _okay_.  Call the lawyer, tell him you want her.  If we need to drive to Akron to get her, I can take a couple days off next week—Witmer owes me for landing a contract with that design firm I was telling you about.”

“What the _fuck_ , Al.”  Llewyn gaped at him.  “You—you can’t just. . . Jesus Christ.”  Arthur’s smile grew gentler.  He shifted his hands to Llewyn’s shoulders, and they rested there, warm and heavy.

“I can’t just what, Llew?”

“I just, just thought. . . .”  Llewyn shook his head slowly.  “I was afraid to tell you.  I thought you might be. . . mad.”

“Mad?  Why?”  Arthur looked genuinely puzzled.

“Because—because I didn’t come into this with a kid.  You didn’t marry me expecting to have to help raise a _child_.”  Llewyn hesitated, then blurted out the whole truth: “I thought you might throw me out if I took her.  I thought you might not want me anymore.”

Arthur stared at him and stammered, “Llewyn, you—you really thought I’d _ever_ do something like that?”  Llewyn worried he was mad about _that_ , but then Arthur threw his long arms around Llewyn’s shoulders and pulled him close.  Llewyn slid his own arms around Arthur and pressed his face against the larger man’s chest.

“Baby, I’m never gonna stop wanting you, I promise,” Arthur whispered against his ear.  “And I like kids, you know that.  I always _wanted_ kids.”

“But she’s someone _else’s_ kid,” Llewyn mumbled into Arthur’s dress shirt.  Arthur lifted a hand to the back of Llewyn’s head and stroked his hair.

“She’s not someone else’s kid, she’s _your_ kid,” murmured Arthur.  “I know I’ll love her, because she’s yours.  Your daughter.  And. . . .”  Llewyn heard him swallow.  “And I hope she can be _our_ daughter if—if that’s what you want.”

Llewyn couldn’t speak at first; then he growled, “Fine.  But you’re not putting a cowboy hat on our daughter, unless she specifically asks for one.  _Without_ being coached.”

Arthur laughed again, hard.  When Llewyn pulled back enough to look up at him again, Arthur was grinning the wide, dopey grin he only wore when he was happiest.

“You really do want her,” Llewyn murmured.  Before Arthur could say anything in reply, Llewyn lurched up and kissed him.  When he sat back down, nearly in Arthur’s lap, Llewyn said, “I love you, Arthur.  You’re disgustingly nice and _good_ , and I love you.”

“I love you too, Llewyn,” Arthur whispered.

“Go get your shower,” Llewyn told him, “and I’m gonna call the lawyer.  It’s late on a Friday, but he might still be there.  If he’s not, I’ll leave a message.”

“Okay,” said Arthur.  He was still smiling as he stood up and started unbuttoning his shirt.  Llewyn picked up the now-battered letter from where it had fallen on the floor and went into the living room to make the call.

Despite the day of the week and the late hour, Mr. Hamilton was still at the office.  He expressed no surprise when Llewyn told him he would honor Diane’s wishes and raise their child.  Hamilton just thanked Llewyn for his “prompt attention to the matter” and said he’d call the next week with instructions on how to proceed.

After hanging up the phone, Llewyn muttered, “What the fuck have I gotten us into?” but he said it with a measure of wonder.  Then he went to the kitchen and started making spaghetti for Arthur’s dinner.

\--

To be continued


	20. Chapter 20

When Arthur came into the kitchen after his shower, Llewyn was stirring spaghetti sauce in a pan on the stove.  He had his back to Arthur, who stopped at the edge of the room where the living room carpet ended and the kitchen tile began.  Arthur stood there and watched Llewyn cook.  Llewyn stuck his pinky finger in the sauce then lifted it to his mouth to taste it.

“Shit,” Llewyn muttered.  He shook in some kind of spice from a jar on the counter and started stirring again.  Arthur knew Llewyn had been trying to replicate his mother’s recipe for tomato sauce, although Arthur hadn’t been able to tell one version of Llewyn’s sauce from the next.  It all tasted fine to him.  Unobserved, he watched Llewyn stirring and swearing, raking a hand through his hair and mussing it.

In the shower, something had occurred to Arthur, while he was shampooing his own hair with his eyes squeezed shut so he wouldn’t get soap in them.  He had been thinking about Llewyn and how he had looked when he said his daughter’s name, and the way he had kissed Arthur when he realized Arthur really wanted her.  Then, in the middle of all of that, another thought had broken in: _When she gets here, I won’t have Llewyn all to myself anymore._

Arthur felt guilty for even thinking it, but he made himself do it.  It was the truth, after all, and it was better for him to get used to the idea.  _Up until now_ , _ever since Llewyn came home from the Merchant Marines, I’ve been all he has, and he’s been all **I** have.  It’s been just the two of us.  And that’s going to change.  It’ll be. . . it’ll be just the three of us.  So maybe it won’t be that different after all._

Arthur smiled and went over to Llewyn.  He put his hands on Llewyn’s waist from behind and squeezed it gently.

“What’d the lawyer say?” Arthur asked.  Llewyn looked back over his shoulder and gave him a little smile.

“He’s gonna call back next week and tell us—well, tell me what to do next.  But I’m guessing we’re gonna have to drive out there and get her.”

“That’s fine.  Like I told you, getting the time off won’t be a problem.”  Arthur slid his hands around to Llewyn’s front, resting on his stomach, and embraced him.  He leaned his cheek against the smaller man’s curly hair and savored the physical contact with his husband after their two-week separation.

“I can’t cook with you hanging all over me,” muttered Llewyn.

Arthur moved his hands back to Llewyn’s sides and mumbled into his hair, “Then hurry up and finish cooking.  I’m starving, anyway.  Ain’t it ready yet?”

“I can’t get the sauce right—”

“I’m sure the sauce is perfect.”  Arthur gave Llewyn’s hair a nuzzle, then drew back a little to kiss his left ear.  “Finish up so we can eat.”

“I don’t know why I even bother.  You don’t appreciate authentic Italian cuisine, you’d be just as happy with a sandwich,” Llewyn griped as he swatted one of Arthur’s hands.

Arthur knew Llewyn was just pretending to be annoyed, and he replied, “What I appreciate is authentic Italian-Welsh chefs, so I’d be happy no matter what I ate, as long as you were the one giving it to me.”  He nibbled at Llewyn’s ear, then reluctantly let the smaller man go.  “But I _would_ rather have spaghetti than a sandwich, so I’ll leave you alone long enough for you to cook it.”

“I’ll cook it faster if you help and make yourself useful,” Llewyn pointed out.  “Go set the table.”

Arthur followed his orders while Llewyn boiled the pasta; then he sat and waited for Llewyn to finish up.  Finally, Llewyn served him perfectly cooked spaghetti, and Arthur proclaimed it delicious, although Llewyn complained that the sauce still wasn’t right.

“It tastes fine to me, baby,” Arthur said around a mouthful of it and the pasta.

Llewyn sulked, “But it’s not like Mom’s.”

“Does it have to be?”  When Llewyn glared at him, Arthur hurried to explain, “I mean, I know her cooking was a big part of your childhood and all, but. . . your cooking’s really damn good, Llew, the way _you_ do things.”  Llewyn tried to keep sulking, but Arthur could tell he was pleased with the compliment.

“Yeah?” he muttered.  “Thanks.  Good to know I got _something_ out of that year at sea.”

Arthur shoveled more spaghetti into his mouth and mumbled through it, “That’s when you learned how to cook, when you were a Marine?”

“Mariner,” Llewyn corrected.  “The United States Marines and the Merchant Marines are totally different things.  And yeah, I was third cook first time I went in, second cook this last time.  I mean, I could make a lot of stuff before that, but I really got a lot better over the year I was away. . . away from you.”  He was looking down at his plate, but he glanced up at Arthur then with his brown eyes soft and longing.

“That year was rough,” Arthur murmured.  “But yeah, you got real good at cooking.  I bet when Maria grows up, she’s gonna complain she can’t get her spaghetti to come out tasting like her dad’s.”

Llewyn smiled at him and said, “Maybe so.”

After they finished dinner, Llewyn started to clear the table, but Arthur told him, “I’ll clean up.  You go on and get ready for bed.”

“Bed?” Llewyn said with a smirk.  “You wanna go to bed already?”

“I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired,” declared Arthur.  “In fact, I may be asleep by the time you get out of the shower.”

“Yeah?  Then you’d better be asleep in the fuckin’ guest room, Al Cody,” said Llewyn.  “Because there will be no sleeping allowed in _my_ bed until you’ve made up for leaving your wife alone for two whole weeks.”

He went off to the bathroom, and Arthur cleared the table and did the dishes.  He really was tired, but every time he remembered the longing way Llewyn had looked at him during dinner, Arthur’s body thrummed with anticipation.  Once the dishes were clean, Arthur went in the other bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, then back to the bedroom to get ready for bed.  He didn’t bother putting on his bathrobe and just got into bed naked.

Arthur thought about pretending to be asleep, just to be annoying, but he didn’t really feel like teasing Llewyn.  Instead, he leaned back against the pillows and tried to read the Zane Grey novel he’d started on the plane.  Llewyn finally came out of the bathroom about ten minutes later.  He’d blow-dried his hair so that it hung shaggy around his face in fluffy curls, and he was wearing one of Arthur’s work shirts unbuttoned with nothing under it.

“Fuck, Llew,” said Arthur.  _Forlorn River_ ended up back on the nightstand.  Arthur didn’t even bother to mark his place before he tossed it aside.

“Did you really miss me while you were gone?” Llewyn asked from where he was still standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

“I really missed you, little darlin’,” Arthur told him.  “C’mere and I’ll show you just how much.”

Llewyn walked slowly toward his own side of the bed, so that Arthur had to stretch to get to him.  He managed to grab a handful of Llewyn’s shirt and tugged on it until Llewyn toppled forward onto the bed and into his arms, where Arthur kissed him thoroughly.

“Missed you. . . _so_. . . much,” Arthur mumbled against Llewyn’s skin in between kisses.  Llewyn laughed and squirmed when Arthur’s lips tickled his neck.  He hadn’t shaved in a while or even shaped up his beard, but Arthur didn’t mind.  It felt softer that way, and Llewyn’s body felt warm in his arms and against him under the shirt, and Llewyn smelled good like their soap and the shampoo he used.  Everything about Llewyn felt like home.

Llewyn said, “I missed you too, cowboy,” and pushed Arthur down on his back so Llewyn could lie on top of him and kiss him on the mouth, deeply.  Arthur wrapped his arms over Llewyn’s back and rubbed a hand up and down it, over the fabric of his shirt.  He wanted to touch Llewyn’s skin everywhere, but he could feel Llewyn’s bare chest against his and the friction of their cocks rubbing together when Llewyn started to grind on him slowly, and that was plenty of contact to start with.  Having Llewyn almost-but-not-quite naked could be hotter than having him naked right away, when Arthur had the patience for it.

Llewyn broke the kiss after a couple minutes and whispered, “I love you.”  Arthur reached up to push his fingers through his husband’s curls and lift Llewyn’s head enough to be able to look into his eyes through their dark lashes.

“I love you too, baby,” Arthur said.  He drew Llewyn’s head back down for more kisses until Llewyn started grinding harder and faster and whining low in his throat.  Then Arthur slid his other hand down from Llewyn’s back to grope his ass, still through the shirt.

“You sound like you need somethin’,” Arthur said in his cowboy voice.

Llewyn growled back, “Yeah, I need you to fuck me.”  Arthur chuckled at how quickly he’d gone from coy to demanding and kept feeling Llewyn up with one hand while he leaned over and dug through their nightstand for lube with the other.  Llewyn rubbed against him, shifting his hips in little circles, and nibbled Arthur’s jaw just under his ear.

Despite Llewyn’s impatience, Arthur prepped him slowly: warmed the lube in his hand, loosened Llewyn up one finger at a time, held and kissed him all the while.  By the time he was ready, Llewyn was completely relaxed with his body limp against Arthur’s chest, his head on Arthur’s shoulder, three of Arthur’s fingers deep inside him, and needy whimpers escaping his lips.

Arthur turned his head to kiss Llewyn’s hair and whisper in his ear, “You said you need me to fuck you, baby?”

“Yes, _please_ ,” Llewyn whined in a breathy voice, “Arthur. . . .”  He clenched around Arthur’s fingers, and Arthur nearly whined with need himself.

“O-okay, I’m gonna take care of you,” he promised, a bit shakily.  Using his feet, he managed to scrabble up into a sitting position with Llewyn still sprawled on top of him, until Arthur was leaning against the pillows again and Llewyn was straddling him.  Then Arthur gently worked his fingers out while Llewyn whimpered in protest.  Arthur grasped the base of his cock and held it steady as he guided Llewyn onto it with a hand on his hip.

Llewyn leaned forward and put his arms around Arthur’s shoulders for leverage to push himself down until he was seated in Arthur’s lap.  Arthur gasped when Llewyn sank down on his cock all at once, because Llewyn felt so hot and tight and perfect.  He hugged Llewyn tight to his chest, and Llewyn clung to his shoulders, and they started moving together.

As much as Arthur had longed for Llewyn during his trip, now it felt like they’d never been apart.  Arthur rolled his hips to thrust up into the smaller man while Llewyn pushed down to meet him.  After a moment, Llewyn hooked his chin over Arthur’s shoulder with his cheek pressed into Arthur’s hair.  His soft moans and whimpers urged Arthur on harder and deeper, but neither of them moved faster.  Like Arthur, Llewyn must have wanted to make it last so they could enjoy taking their time on their first night back together.

Eventually, though, Arthur realized he couldn’t hold back any longer—Llewyn felt too good, and it had been too long.  He nuzzled Llewyn’s ear and murmured, “I’m close, baby.”

“Me too,” Llewyn panted.  “Wanna come with you.  Get me off, Al.”

Arthur gripped Llewyn’s waist with one arm and pushed his other hand between them to jerk Llewyn’s cock.  He managed to hold back his own orgasm until Llewyn swore and clamped down tight on him; then Arthur growled between his clenched teeth and fucked Llewyn hard as he came too.

“Fuck, yeah, just like that,” hissed Llewyn as he finished and Arthur kept coming.  He slumped against Arthur’s chest, quivering, and whispered, “That’s it, come for your wife, knock me up.”  Arthur shuddered and finished in him with a desperate groan.

Afterwards, they stayed in place for a while with Arthur holding Llewyn on his lap, and Llewyn nestling his head against the larger man’s shoulder and neck.  Back when they first started sleeping together, a couple years before, Llewyn hadn’t really shown signs of wanting to cuddle after sex, and Arthur had been too scared to initiate it himself.  Even now, Llewyn didn’t always want to stay close after, especially if he was in a snit about something.  But this night, he was being as clingy as Arthur felt, and even when Arthur was getting sleepy and Llewyn had started muttering about mundane household annoyances like bills and needing to go grocery shopping the next day, they didn’t move from each other’s arms.

Finally, when Arthur couldn’t quit yawning, Llewyn laughed and told him to go on to sleep.  Arthur protested that he needed to clean up first, so Llewyn rolled off of him, and they trudged to the bathroom to wash up together.  Back in bed, Arthur sprawled on his back, and Llewyn curled up against his side with his head on Arthur’s chest.  Soon Arthur was enjoying the best night’s sleep he’d had in a fortnight.

\--

The End


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